Authors Note: There is much speculation on forums and in other various venues as to who the woman was standing on the counsel that the Doctor reacted so strongly to when he saw her tear streaked face. I am taking what seems to be the popular consensus of her identity, it just fits more with the effect the sight of her face had on him and his actions.
Thank you so very much to dm1 for all the pm's! And thanks to all who have liked and favorited this story.
The sounds of the Tardis materializing in the lab caused the Master to look up, his manic eyes glinting as the familiar blue box melted into existence. Stepping away from the console for a moment, he reached out and ripped the last of the barriers from Donna's mind since he was now out of time. Knowing that the sight of her burning from the inside out would overwhelm the Doctor and make him hesitant as he weighed all of reality against saving his companion.
Donna awoke with an agonized scream, golden light pouring her eyes as the doors to the Tardis flew open. She turned towards that sound and bit her lip hard as tears streamed in fiery trails down her cheeks. She saw him in all his rage, filled to bursting with power as she threw all she could at him to give him the strength to do that which he must once more. The fire was scorching now, she knew it was in its final stages even as she fought to remain coherent and conscious enough to help him in any way possible. Should she die aiding him save the universe, well in the end that was an okay price for her to pay to help him.
His eyes instantly snapped to her as the pain and anguish was eclipsed by the onslaught of white hot rage, the faint lines around his eyes that she had never noticed before suddenly deepened and his jaw clenched as he murmured. "Donna."
That was all, even as she felt the touch of his mind against hers, she breathed deeply as her eyes still gleamed even as the fire raged. Her mind settled as she continued to throw his own power back at him, she couldn't help but feel awed by the power she felt swelling within him. The hardened sense of purpose as he strode once more to meet his destiny. Once more to make the decision no one else could make.
The light in the room was blinding, as the Master was cavorting madly around the console. Flipping switches, and spinning wheels causing the light to intensify even more before the five faint figures became more distinct.
The Doctor felt his jaw drop in shock as Rassilon and his high council came in to view, two members of the council had their faces covered in shame, two covered faces that he knew meant they had been a dissenting voice for this foolhardy act. As the Doctor let his eyes roam over the faces he could see. Two Chancellors he recognized, but it was the third visionary who had her face covered that caused his hearts to nearly stop dead. No, please no, not her! Without betraying his thoughts, he screamed incoherently through his bond to Donna. The impotent fury shocking her, even as she struggled to hold control of the fire within her as it surged towards him yearning to join with him in a final burst of glory.
Doctor, use my strength. Keep your head on straight, Spaceman and focus! The universe depends on you!
Breathing deeply and looking to back to Donna for a split second, the warmth in his eyes cracking the cold wrath just briefly before he turned back to face the council of his people.
Rassilon's aged face was as cold and calculating as he had remembered it from the days towards the end of the war. The mad glittering genius made all the more frightening as he surveyed the control room with barely veiled contempt before lighting upon the Doctor. "My Lord Doctor, come to join us in our moment of triumph? Come to see all you have done become undone once more!"
His eyes found the Master, his hand flashed out and a surge of white fire leapt from his gauntlet straight into the Master before flashing to the Doctor as well.
Donna screamed as the Doctor went flying across the control room, before slamming against the wall and crumpling to the ground for a moment. Her breath held as she worried he had been seriously hurt, though the touch that reassured her was colored by agony. Whatever that gauntlet was, it packed a mean punch.
"On your knees, worm! It is a fitting paradox that our salvation comes at the hands of our most infamous child."
The Master clawed his way back to his feet, his hands pounding his chest as he cried out. "No, that's fine, that's good, because you said salvation." He cackled with glee, his eyes burning with madness as he said. "I still saved you. Don't forget that." He nearly capered in place as he shouted. "But this is fantastic, isn't it? The time lords restored!"
The Doctor shook his head as he pulled himself painfully to his feet, harrowed eyes burning even as he approached the quintet before him. Rassilon's words once more showed the prescience of the Time Lords, that even though they were being pulled through from before the final day they knew the Doctor's place in their slaughter. They knew that he alone had been the reason for their destruction. In saving the universe, he had doomed his people and their enemies into the fires of hell for all eternity.
Their essence continued to solidify as the walls of time melted before their onslaught, the might of all Time Lords focused on the high council to herald their triumphant return. The Doctor's eyes only flicked briefly to the woman whose faces was covered, before he turned back to Rassilon.
"You weren't there in the final days of the War. You never saw what was born." His anguished gaze swung back to the Master as he screamed. "But if the Timelock's broken, then everything's coming through. Not just the Daleks once more, but the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-have-been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres." He shook his head as the memories surfaced once more, nearly overwhelming him with the hopelessness and powerlessness he had felt as his own people had descended into complete madness. How the war had escalated and changed the Time Lords of old as they knew that their end was nearing and they refused to go quietly into the night.
The gentle touch on his mind was a balm, Donna's essence and compassion the guiding light that pulled him back from that yawning chasm of loss and rage. He grasped tightly to her presence, his brilliant mind still figuring out the way to end this as quickly as possible before she finally succumbed to the pain that had become her world. "The War turned into hell. And that's what you've opened, right here where it all began. Hell is coming through."
The Master grinned maniacally at that as he quipped. "My kind of Universe."
The Doctor growled in disgust at that before spitting out. "Just listen for once! Because even the Time Lords can't survive that!"
Rassilon threw his head back, his laughter a thing of pure madness as he cried out. "We will initiate the Final Sanction. The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart!"
For once, even the Master seemed shaken by those words. His eyes wide as he breathed, "But that's suicide!"
Rassilon continued as if he hadn't even heard the Master's words. "We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone." His sonorous voice seemed to echo through all time and space as he decried. "Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be."
The Doctor's eyes filled with bleak sorrow as he felt history once again repeating itself, he felt Donna's horror echoing through to him as she finally understood the enormity of the decision he had been forced to make on that long ago day. The day he had chosen to destroy all that he had known and loved. The day he had sentenced his own wife and family to death in fires and destruction, because of the insanity of his people's most powerful leader.
"You see now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. I had to stop them."
The Master was nearly gibbering as he gasped. "Then, take me with you, Lord President. Let me ascend into glory."
The look of pure disgust on Rassilon's face was answer enough, but he spoke the words to hammer home his dismissal. "You are diseased, albeit a disease of our own making. No more."
The Doctor's soul was screaming and raging even as he lunged across the space separating himself from the Master and snatched the blaster from his holster. Spinning on his foot, he placed himself squarely between the Master and the council the barrel of his blaster pointing right at the ring around Rassilon's neck. The Ring of Rassilon, the source of his immortality and power. With the universe in flux still, he could end the Lord President's immortality and insane reign with one single bolt. Still he hesitated.
Rassilon looked at him with a contemptuous smirk. "Choose your enemy well. We are many. The Master is but one."
The Master saw his chance, his chance to still salvage some of the plan that he had formed that had all too quickly dissolved before his eyes. "But he's the president! Kill him and Gallifrey could be yours!" He did not bother to hide the power hungry look from his eyes, just as the Doctor spun about and pointed the blaster right between his eyes. The Master flinched back from the cold fire that burned in the Doctor's eyes, the raging fire brought on by the thought of those he had loved and lost coming back into existence on the planet below.
He babbled almost incoherently as for the first time, he was truly afraid of what the Doctor was capable of doing. He was dimly aware of the Noble woman fading away once again, her time was finally coming to an end as the fires within her roared to dizzying heights in the presence of so much power. He tried bluffing. "He's to blame, not me." The Doctor said nothing, his eyes continuing to burn into his own as it all clicked into place. "Oh, the link is inside my head. Kill me, the link gets broken, they go back." Shaking his head and nearly spitting in his rage, he snarled. "You never would, you coward." The Doctor still said nothing, his eyes boring into the Master's with the intensity of a thousand suns. "Go on then." One last taunt. "Do it."
The Doctor didn't let his hand so much as twitch, though he was frighteningly aware of the fire growing within Donna and that he was almost out of time. By the void, he was a Master of Time and Space and for once he was nearly out of both. While the Master's words flowed over him, he reached out to Donna and drew even more of his own fire into himself. His own essence returning to him, completing him in a way he hadn't been in months. Not like the fire of the heart of the Tardis that had caused him to regenerate into this current body.
No this was his own unique fire, tempered with Donna's indomitable will and drive that filled every hollow corner of his heart. This fire would not kill him, nor trigger a regeneration. It was this fire that filled him till he knew just what to do.
Her brilliant mind had catalogued all the weaknesses of the ship, its slap dash systems barely able to contain the seething fire of Gallifrey. The telepathic circuit that was the heart to it all, the link that kept the timelock opened and allowed the Time Lords to step through. He knew now what he must do.
He spun back about, pointing the blaster at Rassilon even as the Lord President sneered at him.
"Exactly." The Master crooned softly. "It's not just me, it's him. He's the link. Kill him!" Gods, how the Doctor had hated that voice over the centuries. Always taunting him, always feeling superior and always knowing just how to hit him where it hurt the most. In a strange way though, the Master very much had been a constant in his life. He had changed and grown to adapt to that mad genius, he had pushed himself to places that he never otherwise would have dared. It was very strange as he suddenly thought of the universe without the Master in it, without constantly having to be on guard and wondering what he would try next. It was a strange feeling of grief when he thought of all that they could have accomplished together, if Rassilon had not destroyed him so completely all those centuries ago. The thought set him on his course and hardened his resolve as he stared with cold eyes back at the orchestrator of so much suffering.
Rassilon couldn't help but laugh at the blaster pointed at him. Normally such a feeble instrument would not have had any effect on him, but the temporal fields were still in flux and his power was still growing in to this time from his prison. He was vulnerable right now and he knew it. "The final act of your life is murder." His cold lips quirked into an empty smile as he taunted. "But which one of us?"
A flicker of movement behind Rassilon's right shoulder drew the Doctor's gaze as one of the visionaries dropped her hands. His gut clenched as he saw her beloved face, her dark hair with its white streak across her brow. Her eyes burned into his as a tear streamed down her cheek, her fathomless eyes so like his own as she looked behind him and mutely nodded with a soft smile. All the pain and loss he had been running from for so many years, nearly drove him to his knees at the sight of that single tear. He knew that she was blessing his next actions, the actions that would send her back with the council into the burning fires of hell.
His heart-rending wail screamed through Donna's mind, overwhelming the agony of her body as it fought the fires that strove to consume it. The tears he could not shed flowed freely down her face, all the rage and sorrow and screaming anguish that he had hidden for so long was finally laid bare before her. It was the most painful and terrible thing she had ever felt, the never ending loss of a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords as he would once more be forced to destroy his own people in a final act of saving them from themselves. No one had ever heard before. No one had ever cared enough to listen. Certainly not Rose, nor Martha as they had only seen what they had wanted when they looked at him. But Donna heard, Donna heard and Donna cared even as the pain in her own body faded into insignificance next to the endless sorrow that filled the Doctor every day of his terribly long and seemingly cursed life.
The Doctor's eyes burned at the sight of her face as another tear fell after the first, his hearts clenched as he spun away from his past, from all the hope of not being alone anymore which that past represented and pointed the blaster back at the Master.
The Master flinched once more as he stared down the barrel of his own blaster. He knew that he would never be able to get out of the way in time, but finally suddenly he didn't care. He was too tired of fighting, and he at least would have the revenge of being the cause of the Doctor's downfall.
The Doctor felt Donna's mind touch his once more, a barely coherent thought as she murmured. The telepathic circuit Doctor, it's the link! Destroy that and the link is broken! She couldn't bear the thought of him committing murder, and she knew that if he was forced to kill the Master it would most likely destroy him as well. She didn't know who the woman was, but she felt the Doctor's rage and sorrow as he had finally seen her face and her identity had been revealed.
Someone of great importance to him then, but who? The surge of emotion she felt from him were answer enough, but her hands flew to her mouth as the answer flickered across the bond seemingly without thought. It was as if he couldn't help himself, or that flickered from the part of him that was within her. As the tears seared down her cheeks, they seemed to sap the last of her strength. The time was fast at hand and she was too tired of fighting.
"Get out of the way!" The Master hesitated for a split second before comprehension dawned on his face and he leaped out of the way, just as the blaster discharged into the telepathic circuit and half the console exploded in angry fire.
The ship lurched violently as the link was severed, throwing the Doctor to the side and tearing the blaster from his grip as he turned back to face Rassilon. Regaining his balance, the Doctor defiantly faced the Lord President as the rift began to close once more. "The link is broken. Back into the Time War, Rassilon." With a voice like thunder, the Destroyer growled. "Back into hell."
His eyes clouded as the woman threw her head back, screaming to all who could hear in a voice that echoed throughout the universe. "Gallifrey falling!" The ship shuddered as the planet was slowly pulled back into the vortex, the walls of time struggling to reassert themselves as she screamed one final anguished cry. "GALLIFREY FALLS!" Her arms were thrown back wide as she was pulled back into the depths of hell with her people, the depths of a hell from which there would never be any escape.
Rassilon, in a final act of defiance, raised his gauntleted fist and pointed it straight at the Doctor's right heart. His eyes dripping with malice as he cried. "You'll die with me Doctor."
He nodded his head as he recalled the staccato beat that he had heard since Donna had first connected with him. The prophecy was finally going to be fulfilled and he would finally die. "I know." There was no more fighting against the prophecy, it had driven him to this point and now finally it would be fulfilled.
He reached out to Donna and gathered her mind close to his, brushing his essence against her in a final goodbye. Desperately trying to convey how sorry he was for not being able to save her in time, even as he went to his own demise.
Her screams of denial beat at his mind, even as he focused on Rassilon. The tears would not fall, he could not let Rassilon think he was frightened by his impending doom. He had run long enough, and finally at long, blessed last there would be peace. He let Donna feel his regrets, his many many regrets in a life full of them. The most important of which had been the regret for failing her. Once again, he had been too bloody slow to save someone who he cared about. Once again, he destroyed another life even as he saved the universe as a whole. He was sick of paying the price, and finally maybe he would be able to put that awful weight down.
"Get out of the way." The Doctor jerked as he heard the Master's rasping voice, he turned around to see the Master staring with an unbridled rage at the Lord President. The blaster was pointed at Rassilon, but more than that the Master was glowing with a golden fire as he channeled all the power he could into the instrument in his hand.
The Doctor stumbled out of the way as the Master threw his power at Rassilon, not only was it a blaster bolt but a blinding golden column of power that he snatched from Donna even as she was nearing her limit. Draining her fire, she rose up with a scream letting the fires begin to recede once more. As the first bolt connected, the Doctor felt something within himself snap and begin to bend. He was knocked to his knees as he watched with barely comprehending eyes the scene unfolding before him
The Master's blast knocked Rassilon to his knees, as he hurled another bolt and another at the Lord President all the while screaming. "You did this to me! All of my life! You made me! One!" Another bolt punctuated the next word, the sense of tearing within the Doctor intensified "Two!" And another, "Three!" With a final scream of animal rage, he threw one final bolt at the Lord President. "Four!"
With that, the Master threw himself at Rassilon and the Doctor felt all of his timelines tear and shift as a new future was suddenly formed in the blink of an eye. He was nearly insensate as all that could have been flashed before him, the death he had been running from suddenly vanishing and in its stead a new possibility was born. Gallifrey had been the crux of all timelines, Gallifrey had been the crux of his demise and suddenly that was all gone.
The white light suddenly winked out, before blowing outwards in a shock wave of time and energy. The explosion sent him flying into the table Donna was strapped on, slamming his head hard against the restraints that held her in place.
The knocking had ceased, and he still was as he had been. Unchanged and unchanging. He pulled himself to his feet, hands running over himself and his face even as he leaned over her yelling. "No, Donna! Don't do this to me, HANG ON!" Fingers trembling even as they quickly undid the buckles holding her in, he quickly pulled her in to his arms wincing as he felt the heat within her body and knew she was now out of time.
She was completely insensible now, the link between them beginning to falter as finally her frail human body lost the ability to fight. He reached into her mind and began to draw that burning energy out of her, draw his own essence back into himself and finally fix what had gone so terribly wrong.
He knew this time there would be no stopping, not until she was safe or they were both dead. His life was more than a fair exchange for hers.
He ran through the disintegrating control room, the doors of the Tardis wide open as she prepared for a swift departure. His long legs leapt across the intervening space into the Tardis which enveloped him in the safety of its oxygen envelope just as the Master's ship finally disintegrated. The shard of the star of Rassilon went dim as it flew back into the empty space where Gallifrey had just floated a few moments before. The doors groaned shut behind him and the Tardis picked a destination from the Doctor's mind melting away from the destruction as she faded back into the Void.
The silence of the tomb descended upon the Gallifreyan system once more.
The Doctor ran to the medbay, his eyes glued to Donna's face even as he was working rapidly to save her without completely destroying her in the process. Her mind touch was faint and he knew he was fast running out of time, depositing her on the bed his fingers found the familiar touch points on her face causing her to flinch away from him with a scream.
Her eyes flew open as she cried out, irrational fear burning through her as she knew they were fast out of time and how he had acted last time when the clock had finally run out. "No, Doctor! Please don't send me back to that hell! Please if I'm to die, let me die myself. Let me die having known you, all of you! Please don't take that away from me again." Her voice cracked as she whispered, "I couldn't bear to lose you again." Her throat burned with the unshed tears even as the fire grew to consume her, her eyes boring into his endless dark depths even as his lips quivered and the tears fell uncontrolled down his face.
"I'm sorry, Donna. I should never had done that to you, I should never have hurt you the way I did and I never will again. I know it's impossible to trust so soon, but you are almost out of time and I can save you." The fire was in his eyes, the echo of her own flame still burning bright and strong within his own soul. "I have figured it out, please let me in and give me a chance to save you properly this time. My dear Donna Noble, you are the most important woman in the universe, in ALL universes, and just this once, I need you to trust me even though you have every reason not to."
She shuddered at his words, uncertain of all that he was saying and terrified that he would still take the decision from her but she knew her time was up and she had no choice but to leap into the abyss once more, her mind brushing his as she whispered, Please don't hurt me anymore.
His teeth clenched as she melted against him and the words whispered across his mind, the fire was almost too much now as he once again found the contact points and reached in to her mind to draw the energy into himself. Amazingly it was the Master that had bought her the time the Doctor needed to figure out a way to save her. In his mad dash to end the torment of his life, he had actually figured out how to channel and harness the fire in a way that the Doctor never could.
Of course it had meant days on end of absolute agony, and he knew that he would never have been able to inflict that on her. However, the damage was done and he had no choice now but to complete the process or all would be lost once more.
His long fingers trembled against her face as his mind stroked hers, her fear and her sorrow. Her eyes open, she gazed into the haunted depths of his eyes. His agony imprinted on her soul for all time, dulled somewhat as the essence that was him drained from her, but she would never forget the utter bone shattering grief that had enveloped him when he had once more consigned his people back to hell.
Her hand reached up and she softly wiped the tears from his face, the sorrow finally consuming him even as he fought to save her life and her sanity. Tears fell down her face in an aching echo of his own, her own pain and humiliation was nothing when compared to the blazing maelstrom that swirled endlessly within the Doctor.
She finally understood him, this crazy Spaceman. She finally understood all the need for armor and to use words as his weapon. Much as she had always done, a tool used to hide a deeper hurt.
She whimpered as she felt the last of his consciousness melt from her mind, the roaring inferno that had been her life for what seemed like an eternity finally faded away. She waited tensely now beneath his hands, her eyes locked with his as their bond settled into her mind. Dulled now to human levels, she still very much felt him, felt the brush of his essence against her once more as he carefully examined her psyche for any lingering effects.
He knew that he would need to rest long and hard after this, but that it would not result in a regeneration. He had not been able to do this before, because their essences had been so inextricably linked he would have destroyed her in the brief moments that he had left to try to save her. He hadn't had the time to separate them, and honestly didn't think that he ever would have had the Master not already ripped her mind apart as it was.
His fingers tightened as he brushed against her memories of those days, those screaming days of agony as her mind splintered and the Master played and toyed with that agony. The Doctor leaned forward and pressed a trembling kiss to her forehead even as her eyelids fluttered open.
The golden glow had receded, but the faint mental touch was still there. Once awakened, he knew that would never fade for her. He held his breath as he felt the wondering brush against his mind, the fragmented memories sorting themselves out even as he felt the burn of her own knowledge and pain in his mind. He had invariably drawn her imprint on his own essence into himself, and it was a disturbingly intimate connection he felt at this moment.
He didn't destroy her mind and he didn't shove her back behind her wall of silence, instead he drew the fire out of her and into himself finally righting the wrong that he had committed against her all those months ago.
His fingers brushed the sweaty red gold curl from her forehead as he murmured. "Donna, can you hear me? Are you all right?"
She blinked a few times up at him, starting when she saw how close he was and then hissing at the pain in her skill. Like a thousand battering rams, threatening to drown out her sanity, but the fire was gone. The never ending, screaming fire had finally quieted down and she blinked back tears as she looked at him, remembering the last time he had been this close and her hand rose up of its own accord. The resounding crack of her open palm against his face, echoed through the Tardis as his head jerked to the side. "Oi! I guess I had that coming didn't I?" He muttered as he turned back to her, rubbing his hand against the stinging mark on his face. Her eyes were stormy, her lips trembling and her thoughts were in absolute chaos as she glared at him. Oh my Donna, how I have missed you. Though he certainly didn't miss her right hook.
"Don't you EVER do that to me again, Spaceman you hear that? You stole my free will! You stole ME away and cast me aside like I was nothing, in to a half-life while you ran off to save the universe once again." The tears that had been burning since her memories had started to surface finally surged free and she lashed out at him again, slapping at his arm and screaming incoherently. "I begged you, I pleaded with you to just let me die and you didn't care! You took it all away from me. You destroyed me. I thought I was going mad, and it was all your fault."
Her words ripped in to his heart, echoing his own screaming guilt even as he pulled her close despite her protests and blows, allowing himself one sighing moment of exquisite indulgence that she was there and remembering him once more before he murmured. "I know Donna, and nothing I say can undo that. I am sorry. I am so sorry, but I didn't know what else to do and I couldn't bear the thought of the universe without you in it. It was selfish, it was cruel but I didn't know that you would remember anything. I truly thought that I had buried all that."
She snorted into his chest and pushed forcefully away. "And that suddenly makes it all better? The fact that you didn't know? For a genius, you're remarkably thick!" She glared at him for a moment, then sighed as much of the spit and fire drained out of her.
His lips quirked at that last comment, his mind filling with all the times she had teased him and kept him on his toes. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he shook his head. "No, nor was it meant to be. Just please believe me when I say I never wanted to hurt you and that I only wanted to save you in any way that I could." His eyes closed as he admitted with a dejected sigh. "At the time, it was all that I could think of in such a short period of time. You know I'm rubbish when I panic"
She tried desperately to hold on to her anger as she retorted. "You always have been rubbish then, time boy." The bravado suddenly drained out of her as she shuddered and fell against him in a fresh storm of weeping, she clung to his coat even as she murmured. "Never do that to me again. This has to be a meeting of equals where you respect my decisions when it comes to the direction of my life, otherwise I can't continue because I will never be able to trust you again." It nearly destroyed her to say those words, especially after recent events. She understood this crazy alien now more than she had ever understood another being in her life. She felt intertwined with him in a way more intimate than she had ever had with a lover, the thought of walking away from all that terrified her. However, the thought of losing it all again because he deemed she should was even more frightening. She had to know, and she had to know now.
He sighed at her words, unable to believe just like that her compassion rose up to the fore and she was even contemplating traveling with him once again. "I promise Donna. No more playing god with you, Besides I already tried that and nearly destroyed the universe. It is not an event I wish to ever repeat."
Her head cocked at that last comment. "You what?"
He shook his head, as he hugged her tight. "Now's not the time to discuss that. I need to finish examining you and making sure you get all the treatment you need. There will be plenty of time to talk later."
Stroking her hair and just holding her close, unable to believe he had finally had the chance to make things right, he rocked her back and forth even as he wondered just how they would continue from here.
"Take me home Spaceman, I want to say good bye proper to Grandad."
His smile was hidden against her hair as he nodded. "Oh yes, Donna Noble! That I most certainly can do!"
As he gently laid her down against the diagnostic bed to rest and recover, the whirring of the Tardis' medical instruments filled the room while he set about repairing the extensive damage to her body.
All the agony of the previous months did not melt away instantly, the raging fear and anger though was finally subsiding if even for a brief moment of time. He still did not understand how things had changed with the disappearance of the Master and Gallifrey, he did not know how he had changed his fate but for now he did not care.
He knew eventually he would have to tell her about the months he was apart, and the horrible places and decisions he had made that had nearly cost everything, but now was not that moment.