The Doctor couldn't bare being in the room a moment longer, staring at a man clutching his dead daughter to his chest whilst his wife looked up at him for answers. He hadn't even considered… she was only a young girl…
He rushed out of the building before anyone could stop him, heading straight to the boathouse where he'd found the eels and his great idea. His great, wonderful, doozy of an idea that had killed a young girl because he thought he was 'clever'. The idea that would have worked perfectly had he not even thought twice about sacrificing Ashildr for it. Her imagination was powerful and that had been all he needed.
He looked down at his own reflection in the water. Once again he didn't feel like a hero, or that he'd even helped at all. He'd saved the town, but at what cost? He felt like he'd failed. He'd let her down. He'd let them all down. He couldn't save anyone.
Danni had waited a moment outside, giving him a chance to rage, or whatever he needed to do, before stepping inside. She walked over to him, standing as close as she felt he would be comfortable with. Being that frustrated and hurt could mean one of two things for a hug – it was either incredibly needed or incredibly trapping. So she stood by his side in silence, mourning Ashildr as he gathered his thoughts.
"This isn't your fault," Danni told him softly.
He scoffed. "I plugged her into the machine. Used her up like a battery," he retorted before sighing. "I'm so sick of losing."
"She saved her town. Her only home," Danni replied. "She had a good and an honourable death. She wouldn't have seen that as a loss."
"She won't see it at all, will she?" he snapped back before hanging his head. "I'm sick of losing people."
"That's what people do," Danni said softly. "People can do more in twenty years than some people can do in eighty, that's what you said, remember? Her life may have been short, but they will talk about her for the rest of their lives. Her story will be passed down throughout generations. Ashildr will never have to leave her home because they'll all work to keep her here for the rest of its existence."
He looked up at her. He could tell she was hurting, but she had a brave face on. She was justifying it to herself. How many times had she had to do that before? How many times had she had to justify sacrificing someone to save a town, to save herself? He never wanted her to become someone he lost along the way.
"What would you do?" he asked her. "Now that she's saved the town, what would you do?"
Danni shrugged. "I'd go find where you've hidden my gun then go home," she replied. "There's no more help we can give, so why stay?"
Her dismissiveness might have been mistaken for coldness, but he knew someone running when he saw them. Danni had always been incredibly sensitive to death. This time it was coming through as cold and detached. He couldn't blame her for running. He was sorely tempted to as well.
He turned away from her, looking back into the reflection in the water. Danni watched, his pain hurting her as much as her own did. She still thought that what the girl had done was foolish but she hadn't deserved to die. She took a step towards the Doctor.
"You didn't use her up like a battery," she said softly. "You didn't put that helmet on her with even the notion that it might harm her. You saw her potential and the universe decided that it didn't care. She died. There's nothing you, or anyone, can do."
He turned to look at her. "I can do anything!" he shouted, jabbing himself in the chest. "There's nothing I can't do. Nothing. But I'm not supposed to. Ripples, tidal waves, rules. I'm not supposed to interfere."
She wrinkled her nose. "Not supposed to interfere?" she repeated. "All you do is interfere. All we do is interfere. It's like our job."
"But not when it matters," he countered. "Not when I could actually help. Not when I could save…"
Not when he could save the people he cared about. He couldn't go back and save the Ponds from being trapped in the past because he couldn't go back and warn them. He couldn't go back and stop Ashildr dying because that was what history had seen fit for her fate. He hadn't been able to just jump into the TARDIS and find his wife because rules meant that he'd never be able to keep her. Eventually the universe would have just collapsed and saving her out of order would have been pointless. He had wanted her by his side and alive, not erased completely.
Everything had such big consequences. All he ever had done was try and make amends for the pain he had inflicted on the universe. He never wanted to save the town, sometimes one person was all that mattered.
His eyes widened, a thought striking him straight in his pre-frowned face. "Oh."
Danni's brows furrowed. She knew that look. "Oh?" she repeated. "What's 'oh'?"
He just stared at her. That's what Danni was doing. She wasn't trying to save one person, she was trying to save the town. She didn't want to stay around and help with Ashildr's death because she saw bigger ways of making amends, but she couldn't see the smallest gestures had the biggest impact because her new body had never been shown small gestures of kindness.
She didn't need to save everyone. She just needed to save someone.
He rushed over to the water, looking at his face. The thought hit him again, hard and now he couldn't unsee it. Now he couldn't not remember a time, long ago, where he couldn't see the smallest gesture had meant the universe.
"My face…" he breathed.
"What?" Danni replied, still confused. "Theta, what's wrong? What are you on about?"
He stared at his reflection a moment longer, memories filling his mind. Thoughts of regenerating and being confused at the recognition, thoughts of a Roman family huddling together, terrified of dying.
He turned back to his wife. "I think I know why I chose it," he told her.
The Doctor had, at one point, told Danni about how he felt he recognised his face from somewhere else. Neither of them could ever place it, though, and so it had stayed a niggle at the back of his mind. But Donna Noble, the most important woman in the universe, came through centuries after he'd saved her in the most horrid way.
He had been trying to save the town. He only had to save someone. If he could show Danni that saving one person could be the biggest thing you could do if you saved them right, then maybe she could find her own way to helping herself move on from Missy.
"I know where I got this face, and I know what it's for," he told her.
Danni nodded slowly, still baffled. "Alright," she said unsurely. "What's it for?"
"To remind me," he declared. "To hold me to the mark. To show me the way. I'm the Doctor, and I save people!" He looked up at the ceiling, as if he was addressing someone other than her. "And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you!"
She should have expected him to run out of the boathouse, and yet it still surprised her. She had absolutely no idea what had gotten into him, or why he suddenly had gained a rather manic look on his face. When he talked in vague sentences it was because he had an idea.
She quickly followed. "Will you stop running off?!"
~0~0~0~
The village had laid out Ashildr beautifully. She had a fur underneath her as she was lifted onto a table, ready to be prepared properly for the Viking funeral that she truly deserved.
Or, rather, what she would have deserved had the Doctor had any inclination to let her stay dead. He didn't, though. He wasn't just determined to save her, he was manic with the need to bring her back to life. He'd taken a moment to think and then had grabbed the Mire helmet and got to work.
Danni didn't want to interrupt him, even though she wanted to know what he was doing. It seemed like he was just pulling apart the helmet but she wasn't sure what he was looking for. She didn't want to ask, though, because if he could save the girl then she wanted to leave him to it.
It hadn't occurred to her that the Mire might have something in the helmets to help them should they run out of power. It would make sense if they were all pumped up on Warrior Juice, to have a backup in case they suddenly ran out. Maybe some endorphins, or a quick shot of testosterone along with whatever it was that gave them their early morning 'umph'.
Einarr walked over to Danni's side, looking concerned at the man tinkering away by the body of his daughter. "What's he doing?" he asked lowly.
"I think he knows how to save her," Danni replied before she started chewing on her lip. "I think."
That was what the Doctor wanted them all to think. He wanted them to truly believe that he had a plan, when really he was just rummaging through the helmet, hoping that there was something that he could use. He couldn't lose someone else. He had to save her. He needed to save someone.
When he found the medical kit, he didn't even waste time feeling happy about it. Nothing would be better, nothing will be right, nothing could move on until he brought Ashildr back to life. Everything rested on him being able to make amends for his mistakes. He needed to save someone.
He was so manic that he didn't waste the time enjoying his discovery, nor waste time thinking on whether it was a good idea or not. He just pointed the remains of his glasses at it, quickly reprogramming it. He didn't let himself think about how it might just work a bit too well. He wasn't certain on just how, exactly, it would affect Ashildr. He had very strong suspicions, though. Suspicions he pushed right to the back of his mind.
He stood up, holding the medical kit out to show both Danni and Einarr. "It's from the Mire helmet. Battlefield medical kit. I've reprogrammed it for human beings," he explained before placing it onto Ashildr's forehead. After a moment it disintegrated, absorbing into her skin as it got to work.
"It's gone," Einarr breathed, still amazed even in his grief. "It's inside her."
"It's repairing her," the Doctor replied, worrying his hands. Suddenly it felt more like a bad idea than a good one, but he held onto his hope tightly. "It will never stop repairing her, if it works." He leant down next to her. "Come on, Ashildr. Come on," he pleaded. "The story's not over yet."
Danni didn't watch the girl come back to life, taking in the deepest of breaths, barely conscious but very much alive. She watched her husband, who's words sat funny in her head.
It also didn't sit well when he gave Ashildr a second dose, not for her, but for someone else. If the medical kit had really healed her then what was the point?
The Doctor rushed them towards the door, almost pushing her out. She grabbed his arm, looking up at him with a furrowed brow. "What, exactly, did you do?" she asked him.
"I, er," he stuttered out. He needed to get as far away from the village as possible. He really might have just done something incredibly awful and he didn't want Danni to see the consequences of that. He needed time to think on it. "I saved her life," he declared. "We're two days sail away from the TARDIS, we really need to get going."
Danni could tell when he was trying to leave because he didn't want to hang around and talk to people, and when he ran away. They may have spent a long time apart but they'd spent longer together. She knew her husband and he was running.
But from what?
~0~0~0~
The trip back to the TARDIS was very different to the one to the village. The stars had been incredibly romantic, the Vikings had struggled to keep the husband and wife apart. This time, though, even sat next to him Danni could tell he was still back in the village. He barely talked as he was lost in his own thoughts, so all it had left Danni to do was think as well.
And think she did. So much so that, as their beautiful blue box came into view, she was stuck thinking about one thing. Over and over in her head until, finally, as they were almost home, she stopped.
The Doctor, who hadn't even been walking by her side let alone holding her hand, also paused when he realised he couldn't the crunch of the leaves and undergrowth underneath her boots. He turned to look at her. "Danielle?"
"What did you do?" she asked him. "To Ashildr. What did you do?" The guilt on his face echoed the same expression she'd seen on the longboat. She took a step closer. "You said that the patch was going to repair her. That it wouldn't stop repairing her," she prompted.
He started to worry his hands together. "I did say that, yes," he confirmed.
"And you said that the second patch was for whoever she wanted to give it to. Why would she want to give it to anyone?" she pressed. "What, exactly, did you do? Because a body that doesn't stop repairing is like ours, isn't it? One that regenerates."
"It will just keep fixing her," he replied guiltily. "It's entirely possible she has lost the ability to die."
Danni blinked for a moment. She had expected him to deny it or tell her how she was mistaken and explain what had actually happened to her in a tone of voice that may or may not suggest she was a bit of an idiot. She hadn't expected him to confirm what she had thought was true.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Instead of feeling happy and grateful that Ashildr was alive now, she felt furious that she had been forced into something when she'd had no say on it. "You've made her immortal?" she asked him lowly.
He couldn't look her in the eye. He knew how she'd felt about the issue of 'immortality'. He hadn't been truly thinking about any of that, though, when he'd saved Ashildr. "Barring any accidents, yes."
She turned away, walking from him, trying to calm down before turning back to him, eyes blazing. "Seriously?!" she exclaimed. "What the hell, Theta?! You know what functional immortality is like! We're both stuck on that path! We both have to sit back and watch everyone else die. Why the hell would you do that to her?"
"She didn't deserve to die," he protested weakly. Even his own arguments felt a bit pathetic and he knew what they were.
"No one deserves to die. People just die," Danni countered. "She had a good death. She saved her village, her people. Immortality is not a fair trade off for that." She looked ready to either wring his neck or put her face in her hands, he couldn't tell which and she didn't seem to be able to decide. "Is that it now? Barring accidents it's just going to be me, you, Ashildr and Jack…" She shook her head. "Not even Jack, though, is it? Even his never-dying state ends eventually." Her eyes widened slightly. "And we left her there! All on her own, surrounded by people who are just going to die around her. With just one patch to turn someone into a being like her."
"All she wanted was to be at home. Now she can be," the Doctor argued. "She will be fine. You came to terms when it was sprung on you."
She stared for a moment, genuinely in disbelief about him using that argument. "No I didn't!" she argued back. "I've never come to terms with it! Do you not remember Trenzalore at all?!" She sighed. "I understand that you wanted to save her. You want to save everyone and even one death is a fail. I understand that, I do. Why did you do this? It's so… It's so not like you at all."
That was what confused her the most. His own immortality, or his incredibly long life at the very least, had always been a burden to him. For every death they'd lived through together she was wounded, but he just grew tired. Both of them wanted as long as possible to travel the universe, learning and exploring and living a wonderful life together, but the downside could sometimes be crushing. He'd never have wished it on anyone, so why give it to Ashildr?
He stared at his wife, who wasn't accusing him of anything, who just looked completely baffled at his actions. He felt pretty much the same. "I thought that, if you saw me make amends…" he started. "You don't have to save the town, just one person. Sometimes we forget that."
He was right, of course. Sometimes if they couldn't save everyone it felt pointless to try and save one person. But, sometimes, saving one person was good for the soul. Sometimes a win really was a win, even if it felt like a loss when it happened.
However, those weren't the words that Danni focused on. "You can't keep doing this," she told him. "It is not up to you when and if I make amends for my mistakes. I don't need you showing me like some – like some father trying teach his daughter right from wrong. I'm not your daughter, I am not a child!"
"Of course you're not," he quickly replied. "I know you're not."
"And you can't keep using me as an excuse as to why you do these things," she continued. "Showing me my 'good' side. This is me Theta. I'm not good, I'm not bad, I'm just me."
He remembered giving a similar speech to Missy. She had tried to separate them by forcing him to fall onto a side. Just like before, when the man who's face he'd stolen flew back to his memory, so did that speech. He'd declared that he hadn't needed an army or a side, because he'd had her.
And she doesn't tell me what to do, or how to act. She shows me how to love the universe, and she loves me when I can't. Through her eyes I can see everything.
And he was trying to force her into something she wasn't ready for, even if she wanted it. His job was never to show her the way, it was just to be there when she found her own.
"I'm not trying to change you," he said softly, apologetically. "I'd never do that. I just wanted to help."
She smiled sadly. "Exactly," she said. "You want to help. We both want to help. You saved Ashildr not because you wanted to show me that it was possible, I know I can save anyone I like if I try. You did it because you're tired of losing when all you want to do is help. You still think that you lost this Danni, who got killed and you're never going to find her again. This good, honest, pure Danni and you look at me and you don't see her. So when this pure, young, scared little girl died you didn't want to let her go again."
He felt awful. Not only for Danni seeing that in his actions and his words, but for the fact that she was also right. He still felt her loss greatly, even as she stood in front of him. He looked for the goodness in her actions not because he knew they were there, but because he wanted to see the Danielle he'd never saved in her.
He remembered her doing the same when he'd first regenerated. She'd struggled to let Eleven go and accept him and it had really hurt to think that she was never going to love him as he was now, but only the man he had once been. She'd always shown a fondness for his previous body, after all. But she'd shown him that wasn't the case, she had just been learning him again. They both were.
He was doing the same to her. He couldn't let her old body go. Was it because he hadn't said goodbye? Was it because he hadn't saved her? Was it because Missy had taken her from him and not allowed either of the closure?
Either way, he was comparing her to her old body and that wasn't fair. He knew how that felt. And now Ashildr was paying the price.
"I may have gotten emotional," he admitted. "I'm so tired of losing. I wanted- I want a win."
"And we'll get one. We've had wins. Not every adventure ends with something terrible, does it?" she replied. "But this isn't how we get it. I will come to terms with what I did. You can't use it as an excuse to lose your head."
"I know," he replied. And this time she could see he meant it. She sighed, walking over and taking his hand.
"What now?" she asked. "We can't just leave her there. She's immortal, now. She doesn't deserve to watch people die."
"We don't know if she is immortal," the Doctor reasoned, although his suspicions on that subject were rather high. "She won't want to be drawn from her family. We can check in later to see how she's doing. If she's still around, then we can deal with her."
Danni really didn't like the sound of that, but then he held out his hand for hers. "The future will show us what she becomes," he tempted. "Shall we take a look, my Pet?"
The Doctor had this smile, this tempting look, these purred words that when used in combination Danni found very hard to resist. Even in Missy's many incarnations of him over the years she'd only resisted a handful of times. More often than not, at least for a little while, they always worked.
The idea of exploring the future together in a way no one else could would always draw her in. She reached forward and took his hand. "After we make up for the boat ride," she purred. "Let's go find us some proper stars."
~0~0~0~
"And it just worked?" Clara asked. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," Danni confirmed, peering from the back of Clara's television. "She came back to life, and we left. Do you have a bobby pin?"
"Probably," Clara replied, heading towards her bedroom. "That's pretty awesome, though, isn't it? Did you manage to find any more of those kits?"
"No, there was only one helmet. Probably for the best, though," she replied. "The Doctor said it only worked because of how soon after her death it happened," Danni explained, holding her hand out for when Clara came back. "It has something to do with organ degeneration or something. He programmed it for humans but it needed something to rebuild."
"Makes sense," Clara replied. "It's a shame you can't just carry a handful of them around with you. They'd come in handy."
Danni paused as she pulled the legs of the bobby pin apart. She'd not told Clara about how the Doctor had pretty much made Ashildr immortal. Danni knew that he wasn't exactly proud of his actions, and they still didn't know the extent of how he'd 'fixed' Ashildr. So she knew that wasn't what was going through Clara's mind.
"Is it alright for you to be home on a Thursday afternoon?" Danni asked as she went back to pulling apart the DVD player. "I thought you had Tuesdays off this term? Or have I been away longer than I realise?"
"No, no, you've not," Clara reassured her. "I, er, actually I quit my job."
Danni popped up from behind the television like some sort of children's toy. "You quit? Why? I thought you loved your job?"
"I did," Clara agreed. "But, I dunno, I just couldn't keep going in every day to all the sympathy and the tilted heads and the," she tilted her head to show her point, "'How are you today, Clara?'"
Danni grimaced slightly as she pulled off a small piece of circuit board. She was sure it was completely unnecessary. "How-How are you doing with that?" she asked. "I mean, has it been long? I'm not sure of time frames anymore."
"About six months," Clara replied, as if she didn't know the exact count of months, days and hours since she heard over the phone that he'd been in hit by the car. "And as well as could be expected, I guess."
"I noticed you redecorated," Danni told her. "It's nice. I'm glad you kept my fairy lights up."
Clara glanced over at the desk in the corner. She'd moved everything around, bought all new furniture and tried so hard to submerge herself into a new life. Still, Danni had taken so much time sorting out the fairy lights and photos around it she'd had to keep them around.
"New life, new me," Clara replied with a shrug. "Anyway, I have a few interviews and hopefully something will pan out."
"I'm sure it will," Danni said. "You're amazing. Anyone who wouldn't hire you are idiots you don't want to be working for."
Clara nodded, her ego inflating just slightly. "You're right," she agreed. She watched Danni the best she could behind the television. She wasn't sure what she was doing to her DVD player, having instead resigned herself to buying a new one. She didn't want to tell Danni that she'd got a new job just yet. She wanted to wait to make sure it worked out first.
She smiled to herself. It was so nice to just have the Time Lady around. She enjoyed watching her work, and listen to her talk, and the stories she had to tell reminded Clara of a life she really missed. She was slowly coming to terms with the fact that it wasn't her life anymore, though, and she knew one thing; she needed to build the life she wanted instead.
"Can I ask a question?" Danni asked her, startling her out of her thoughts. Clara flushed slightly, wondering if Danni had noticed that she'd been staring at her. She couldn't help it. Something about the brown hair up in a bun, looking like she knew how to use her hands…
She cleared her throat. "Of course," Clara replied. Danni sat back onto the heels of her feet.
"How did Danny die?"
It was a question that Clara didn't expect, and she blinked for a moment before going into defensive mode. "Which time?" she joked flatly. Danni shrugged, not commenting on her weird response. Clara frowned. "You don't remember?" she asked, genuinely surprised. "We did-I did tell you."
"Well, the Doctor doesn't like talking about it—" By 'it' she meant Clara, "-so I can't really get an answer out of him. And I didn't want to ask you when it was too raw to ask. But you seem to be doing better. It all happened so quickly, and with Missy, I don't know if what I know is right or if she made it up."
Clara leant back on the sofa, crossing her leg over the other as she made sure she was calm and collected. She didn't want to be the woman who always cried when talking about her dead boyfriend. She wanted to be the woman who could keep herself together.
"He was hit by a car," she said softly. "He was on the phone to me and he was hit by a car. He was dead on impact."
"And-And he died again?"
Clara nodded, this time with a smile on her face. "He died saving the world," she whispered. The thought of him dying, of him burning, was a horrific memory. However, knowing how he had sacrificed himself made her so incredibly proud of him. "He was turned into a Cyberman. He almost turned over to Missy's side, but he saved us all instead." She raised her eyes to meet Danni's. "He had a good death," she stated. "It's the only good thing to come out of it, but he died as the best man that I will ever know. I know it's what he would have wanted."
Danni shifted on the floor. Even an outline of the story was heart-breaking, but Clara's words just reminded her of Ashildr. They really needed to go back to see her. It was the least they could do now that they'd taken her good death away from her.
"I'm sorry we couldn't save him," Danni told her friend.
"I'm sorry I even asked you to," Clara replied quickly. "You were never there just to do what I asked."
"Yeah, we were," Danni replied cheekily. "That's why you're the boss."
"Well, yeah, that's completely true," Clara agreed. "But I shouldn't have asked. And if I hadn't then…"
"Then Missy would have got me anyway," Danni finished for her. "Don't let her make you feel bad. Trust me, as someone who's been made terrible by her, it's really not worth it."
They fell into silence for a little while. Danni's question had been easy to ask, but Clara really wanted to ask her own about Danni's time with Missy. She barely knew anything about it. But she knew that it was going to be painful to bring up.
"Danni…" she started before there was a spark from behind the television. Alarmed, Clara jumped up. "Danni! Are you okay?"
"Fine, I'm fine," Danni promised. "I've almost got this done."
"What are you doing?" Clara asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Your DVD player doesn't have a record function. I thought I could add it then connect it to the Wi-Fi to get you gaming capability as well. You have VR, right?"
"Wait, what?" Clara rushed over to her. "Stop it, I really don't need that!"
~0~0~0~
"Theta?"
"Uh huh?"
"Are we going to go back?"
The Doctor rolled over, a frown on his face. Danni laid in the bed next to him, looking up at the ceiling above her. She had her arms above her head with her own thoughtful look on her face.
"Back where?" he asked.
"To Ashildr," Danni clarified. "I feel like we should, you know, check in on her or something? I mean, we did just leave her to her own devices."
"We can't just babysit everyone we save," the Doctor countered. "Otherwise we'll be doing nothing but dropping in and checking on the universe. We're not nannies, are we?"
"Well, no," Danni replied, agreeing completely. "That sounds incredibly dull. She's not the same, though, is she? If she is immortal…"
"If."
"Then shouldn't we, you know, at least give her a rundown on the basics. You know, explain how she needs to keep moving. She's in very early Earth history. They might think she's a witch."
"There's no 'immortals handbook'. We've not, exactly, got it down either have we?" he pointed out. "You're always looking back on people."
"We have a time machine. It's different," Danni protested before settling back into the pillow. "It just doesn't seem very fair," she said. "Why does she get to live when other people don't, you know? And don't get me started on the whole forced immortality thing. That's incredibly unfair."
The Doctor sighed heavily. "This is because you've been spending time with Miss Oswald."
Danni looked at him, affronted. "No it's not!"
He just shot her a look. "We couldn't have saved PE," he reminded her.
She shifted slightly in the bed. "I know, I wasn't thinking that," she lied.
"And she tried to kill you for him," the Doctor continued. "It doesn't exactly make me want to help her in any way. Let her fight her own battles."
"She didn't try and kill me," she corrected. "And even if she did, it wasn't because Danny asked her to." She looked back up at the ceiling. "I totally understand the difference between saving someone when you're linear to their timeline and jumping back. We couldn't have saved Danny because we only found out afterwards, when it was too late. It just," she sighed, "I don't like this kind of power."
The Doctor agreed wholeheartedly. He just wanted to travel, and learn, and enjoy life. He was always put into situations where he had to make those kinds of choices and more often than not he wasn't sure if he was making the right one. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't, and most of the time he enjoyed being the person to save everyone. But then, when he thought about it too much, he wanted to just go home and hold his wife.
He pulled her closer and she turned so he could hold her close against his chest. "We can go wherever you like, my Pet," he told her, placing lazy kisses against her neck. Having lost her, he took every opportunity to hold her tight. "If you want to go see her, then we can go see her."
"I just…" She trailed off for a moment, wondering if she should really say anything at all. She pressed her lips together because she wanted to word her thought correctly. She still struggled with saying some things out loud. "I was alone and afraid. I don't want her to be the same when there is someone who could help."
The Doctor paused his soft kisses. The guilt at just her words flared up and he pulled her a little closer, as if he was trying to protect her from the universe. She didn't need it, she could look after herself, but he wanted to save her from everyone else. He needed to make amends for not saving her before it was too late.
He didn't want to take her to Ashildr if it meant that, if only for a moment, she was reminded of just how scared she had been. He knew that the more they travelled the less she looked for those cracks in reality that meant that she was asleep. She was sleeping better, she was reaching for her gun less. She was feeling safe and, as much as he had been fond of Ashildr, he wasn't going to push that back for her.
"We can check in on her next," he lied, sounding as if he'd decided that with no chance of him changing his mind. "I'm sure she's absolutely fine, though."
~0~0~0~
"What do you know about the Doctor?"
Lady Me looked up from her drink at the strangely dressed woman. She never frequented establishments of this sort, but sometimes she would get bored. She was much too wealthy and had too much class to sit down with the people who barely could afford the alcohol they were buying instead of feeding their families.
"I'm sorry?" she asked the strangely dressed woman. She hadn't noticed her enter, and by the looks of it no one else had either. Though the people around her much too focused on blurring their vision.
"The Doctor, dear," the woman replied, grimacing as she looked at the stood next to Lady Me. She pulled out a cloth to wipe it down before sitting next to her.
"If you're looking for a physician…" Me started, holding her own cards close to her chest. She knew that she kept her face neutral, she had been in the game of lying for quite the few years at this point.
Still, the woman rolled her eyes. "Don't play stupid, dear, you're much too pretty for that," she scolded. "The Doctor? Old man. Eyebrows. Grumpy, you can't miss him. What do you know about him?"
"I don't know what you mean," Me insisted, firmer this time.
"Fine, play hard to get," the woman dismissed. "I just thought you'd like to know that he would be here soon. Well, Earth anyway. Him and that little wife of his."
"Really?" Me asked, realising as the word came out of her mouth that she sounded incredibly too keen. The woman grinned.
"Yes. Well, a decade or two is soon for you, isn't it?" she replied. "You just need to hang around here and he might take you away in that spaceship of his. You never know."
"And, if he is, why would you be telling me?"
"Because I have a favour to ask of you," she replied. "Do you see the woman over there?" She nodded with her head. Me looked over and saw a brown-haired woman sat between two men, both of whom were leaning too close and looking entirely too friendly for her liking.
"Yes?" Me replied, her jaw set, one step away from getting up herself to move her away. She hated the way men could drool over women like they were mere objects. She hoped that, eventually, she would live to see that actually change.
"That's his wife," the woman explained. "I want you to tell him exactly what happens here. I know your tiny little human mind can't hold on too many memories, but can I trust you to remember this?"
"I'm sure I can," Me replied in a drawl. "But why would I?"
"Because I'll point you in the right direction," the woman explained. "Time, dates, whatever you need to get your silly little human body over there. Just make sure you remember and tell him."
Me looked over at the woman who was being harassed. One of the men reached forward and grabbed her arm. She shot up, knocking their drinks to the floor. "Get your hands off me!" she snapped in warning. The woman next to Me looked over, exasperated.
"Calm down, my Pet," she called over. "They bought you for the night. You'll have to behave or they won't come back."
Danni looked over, absolutely furious. "You sold me?!" she shouted.
"Only for the night," the woman in the strange dress defended. "They wanted you to do their cleaning, or farming, or something. I can't say I was paying much attention." She sighed at Danni's outraged look. "You wanted a night out," she said, exasperated. "You told me so yourself, remember? How else was I supposed to pay for it?" She shook her head, turning to Me. "How rude. Expecting something for free."
"You sold your own friend?" she asked slowly.
"No, I sold my property," the woman countered. "Keep watching, keep watching."
And Me did. She watched as the men tried to manhandle her again. She watched as Danni fought against them, telling them to back away. And she watched as Danni pulled out a gun from somewhere on her person. Me didn't see where she pulled it from, but she saw how she shot the first man with shaking hands. The other man looked terrified and ran away as Danni dropped the gun, backing away in horror.
The woman next to her stood up. "He'll be in London in the 1650s," the woman explained. "Make sure you tell him what happened here."
"Who are you?" Me asked, but the woman waved her away.
"Just passing through, dear," she replied. "Excuse me." She pulled her sleeve up, revealing a large leather bracelet. Not a lot surprised Me now, considering that she had lived for so long, and she wasn't surprised when the woman disappeared in front of her eyes.
Danni disappearing, though, that was new.
~0~0~0~
Missy pretended, for a moment, to not notice how Danni was hyperventilating. She checked to make sure that they were back in her office before taking the manipulator on her wrist off. She turned Danni, tutting lightly, before doing the same for her.
"It's alright, my Pet," she said soothingly. "You're safe now."
Danni looked up, absolutely terrified and horrified. "I-I killed him," she whimpered. "I killed- I didn't want to, I just wanted him to let me go…"
"I know, my Pet, I know," Missy reassured her. "But you're safe now." She took the two manipulators over to her safe, placing them away so Danni couldn't get her hands on them without Missy supervising her. "I'm so sorry that happened, my Pet. I really did think you'd just be their maid for their night."
Danni couldn't breathe. "I-I killed him," she whimpered over and over. Missy pulled her into a hug and, for once, she didn't fight. She took comfort from Missy, who smiled whilst her Pet couldn't see.
"You had to," she told her. "That's why I gave you the gun. The universe is a dangerous place, and 17th century England is one of the worst."
"I-I had to?" Danni repeated weakly.
"Those men were going to do terrible things to you, my Pet," Missy reminded. "If I hadn't protected you then I don't know if I would have been able to save you. What else were you supposed to do?"
"I-I had to fight them off," Danni stuttered out.
"That's it," Missy confirmed. "You're safe now. You had to do it. What if they'd hurt someone else? You did well, my Pet."
Danni nodded, still shaking. "I-I had to," she whispered. "I had to. I was in danger. I had to."
~0~0~0~
I think I'm just going to change my update day to 'someday' because I'm just not keeping up with it, am I?
Don't forget Danni's anniversary! 3rd June! Check out my Tumblr for more. You don't need an account to join in :)
Reviews!
Wyvernhandler - No, definitely not a bad thing at all! I don't have one to offer but my lovely friend did write some 10/Danni/11 smut. It's on the OurDanniGirl side account on here, if you fancy a read :)
bored411 - We've not quite reached the next episode yet, but I hoped you liked this one anyway :)
AGBreads - Thanks sweetie :)
Authora97 - Thanks sweetie. I'm very much looking forward to it :)