12th Doctor's POV

Clara was spinning around the TARDIS console. For no particular reason.

"Might I ask what is with the spinning? You are giving me a headache." I grumbled, having to keep hold of myself so I didn't fall over.

"Oooh, Mr. Grumpy." She said, a teasing light in her eye. "Can't I be happy?"

"Not when I have a headache." I answered coolly, turning to face the controls.

She sighed theatrically. "Chinny wouldn't have said that." She threw am arm up as she talked. "You probably would have helped me spin." She pouted at me.

"Tut-tut." I said sarcastically. "Does it look like I have the strength to spin you around this time?"

"I dunno, you always have a lot of tricks of your sleeve." She held up a hand to stop my speech. "I'm just saying you are always full of surprises."

The front door burst open, causing both of us to turn our heads.

"Like father like daughter." said the beaten up, sooty and bloodstained woman with wavy, auburn colored hair.

"Jenny." I whispered, shell shocked.

"You left me. You BLOODY LEFT ME! Oh little naive me, thinking you were just going to pop right back out of your TARDIS after you had collected your screwdriver!" She yelled.

I took a deep breath, then turned to Clara. "Could you please go... and give us some privacy?" I choked out.

She looked confused, but after she took in the desperate look in my eyes, she walked out without another word. "And stay away from bouncy castles." I called after her.

"Why?" Jenny said. "What did I do to deserve that? Did you hate me that much?"

"Quid Pro Quo." I suggested. She still looked furious, but nodded.

"How long has it been for you?" I starting walking around the control panels. "Looks like its been awhile." I said, both avoiding her question and starting up the engines again.

"You aren't answering my question."

"And you aren't answering mine. Do you know how this game works?" I didn't yet have the courage to look at her, so instead I looked at my shaking hands. Not reassuring.

"I have had to play that game to save my life before. I have been beaten up, harassed, almost raped on several occasions, drugged, thrown in jail, been shot at, gotten stabbed, jumped from several stories up to save my own bloody neck, watched people be murdered right in front of me, while I was tied up and defenseless with guns pointed right at my head, nearly killed dozens of times, and you just want to play a game?!"

My mouth went dry.The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun, but this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons... behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor, you made this. I remember Davros say. I got dizzy. "Oh my God, what did I do?" I put my head in my hands and started to cry. "What did I do to you?"

She moved until she was standing right beside me. Her voice was still hard. "Why?"

"It wasn't that you didn't deserve it, it was that I didn't want you dying on me again. No, let me talk. I have lost... so many kids. I had a family, you know. Before I ran away. There was this virus that wiped out my entire family, but spared me and my granddaughter. God knows why, there was nothing left of value for us on Gallifrey. I was rich. I had estates of land, and enough money to own my own star system." I shook my head. "But that meant nothing to me. It was my family. Always my family, in the end. I was friends with a lot of people, and when I occasionally popped back to see them, I would check on them, and their kids. Catch up. And then even they were killed in the Time War. I had no one. You think you had it bad? How about thinking that you destroyed your home planet with everyone on it because that was the kind thing to do, for thousands of years? I am not going to say you have had it easy, not at all. But I was trying to protect you." I paused. "Did I hate you that much, you ask? No, I loved you too much. I didn't want to see you turn into a hard warrior, full of hate and remorse. I don't hate you. I could never hate you. I was given a second chance, and I did not want to see you get killed again."

She was silent. "Twelve years. That's how long it's been for me."

I almost laughed. "That seems to be a magical number for finding someone again."

A/N- So this is a sort of quick update. This takes place after last Christmas, by the way. I am not going to be writing Missy in, as of right now. I am sorry about the wait for that last chapter, and sorry of you guys got an e-mail for a new chapter, only to have this taken down seconds afterward. I had to fix something. I got the Quid Pro Quo idea from Silence of the Lambs, which I have recently watched. Sorry bout the rambling. Please review!