Note: this chapter contains profanity (just at the end)

Over the next several days we continued to fight, going around and around the issue but never getting anywhere. Our arguments were as heated as the one we had on the Red Asteroid and the emotional strain took its toll on my body. I became sick and the Doctor took care of my every need for a week as I recovered. When I was finally up and about again the Doctor clearly seemed to think we'd put our issues behind us, but I was still set on going home.

I found the Doctor in the library in one of his favorite areas. I rapped lightly on a bookshelf and he started.

"Hey, can we talk?"
"Of course!" He rapidly put down his book and turned toward me. "How are you feeling?" His concerned eyes were emphasized through his nerd-glasses and the endearing picture tugged my heart.

"Still pretty awful, but I'm up. Took a shower."

"That's good." He caught himself. "I mean, that's good!" He blushed. "You smelled fine."

I chortled but it turned into a racking cough. Once it subsided and I'd caught my breath I started again.

"We need to talk about me going home."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "It's not happening. You need to move on."

"I can't move on." My heart wrenched. "This is my whole life we're talking about."

"It is your life we're talking about; and I can't guarantee your safety if you go home."

I huffed in exasperation. "I don't want you to guarantee my safety. I want to be with my family."

"There's more to it than just your health. You're an anomaly and that makes you my responsibility."

"No, it doesn't." I was beginning to shake – from exhaustion or anger, I wasn't sure – you're not god. The weight of the world doesn't fall on your shoulders."

"Yes, it does!" He stood up angrily. "In case you forgot, I'm one of the last Time Lords in existence." His face was dark.

"That doesn't give you authority over me," I seethed.

"Yes. It does. The Master –"

"Don't talk to me about the Master!" I screamed, making my body convulse with coughs. My head swam and I sank to the floor.

"The Master," the Doctor started again, slowly, deliberately. "Is my responsibility and he changed you, and that makes you my responsibility too."

"I said not to talk about him." I whispered hoarsely.

The Doctor knelt in front of me. "I'm sorry that it turned out this way. Really I am."

"But you're still going to imprison me for the rest of my life."

He pulled back, hurt. "I thought you liked traveling with me." he said quietly.

"I love it," I snapped tears stinging my eyes, "But that's not the point."

"The point is choice." The Doctor nodded.

"Yes." My voice softened, shoulders slumping. "I want the freedom to choose."

"I know." He gently touched my cheek. "But this time I have to make the choice for you. For the good of everyone."

I looked up into his eyes, tears in mine. "I'm never going to be ok with that," I whispered.

He nodded understandingly. "You don't have to be. It's decided."

My heart dropped. I stood.

"That's it, then."

"We'll make the best of it." He stood too. He was almost pleading. "We're friends."

I closed my eyes. "This isn't friendship."

"Adal—"

"I'm going to my room." I turned and left.

After that we barely talked. He insisted I go out with him, but I had fallen into a depression and nothing we did touched me anymore. He took me to see the diamond coral reefs of Kataa Flo Ko but I couldn't enjoy it. He took me to times in Earth's history that would have made a younger me cry with joy. But it all meant nothing now. Everything was repetitive and meaningless.

The Doctor rapped on the bookcase I was leaning against. "Hey. We need to do a checkup."

It had been so long I'd almost forgotten about the routine examinations for my health.

"We don't need to do those anymore." I focused back in on my book.

"Listen," the Doctor said, "I know you're mad, but these checkups are important."

"Not really." I didn't look up from my book. "You haven't found anything new the last twenty times and what we do know you can't do anything about."

He fumbled silently. "It's still important for me to stay updated. Because you nev-"

"-never know when things might change, never know when I might spontaneously combust, never know when your ward the anomaly might create a wormhole or a time pocket or a paradox or something equally horrible." I listed dully.

The Doctor looked sheepish. "I guess I've given this speech a few times."

"Yeah." I continued reading.

He waited, but when I showed no sign of getting up, he repeated, "So let's do this checkup."

"No," I finally looked up. "I think these checkups are more about controlling me and keeping me afraid then keeping me safe, and I'm no longer interested."

The Doctor's face oscillated between anger and horror. I watched steadily, not giving away my own feelings. Finally he said in a low voice, "I don't like controlling you. And the last thing I want is for you to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid." I said calmly. "What I am is done with capitulating to your demands."

The Doctor looked at me hard. Would he physically make me have the checkup? The thought made me want to vomit. Finally he just walked away. I finally let my breath go and started silently crying.

I felt so trapped. I just wanted out. God, let me out. Anything would be better than the ice between us. How could I have been so wrong about him? Well everything was fine until I became a problem to him. And now he was just going to control me forever.

Paris, 1922. We sat on a bench and ate ice cream that turned to sand in my mouth. Finally I broke the silence.

"Did you ever once consider that maybe me staying with you was part of the Master's plan? That maybe if I was out of your life, I would be safe from him?"

"I told you we aren't talking about this anymore. And did you ever consider that he might find you alone? And what would you do then, hm?" He stood and tossed his ice cream into the garbage.

"You don't know who you are; you don't know what you're doing." He walked back to the TARDIS.

I stood to follow but turned to look behind me. What if I could just walk away?

"Adalyn!" he called from the TARDIS.

I went. But an idea had been planted.

I needed a method of travel. And I couldn't go straight home; it would be the first place he'd look for me. I had to take him in circles. For that matter, I needed to devise a way to keep him from tracking me.

I dropped my head in my hands. I was setting myself not one impossible task, but a dozen. I was sure to fail.

Nevertheless, I took a new sheet of paper and spread it before me. I would make a plan and I would make it perfect. After all, I had all the time in the world.

I poured over my plans. They were my life – these pages. They detailed exactly what I would have to do, where I would have to go, and when I would have to do it. Whenever I wasn't with the Doctor I was reviewing my plans – eating, drinking, breathing them until they became a part of me.

I closed my eyes. I couldn't wait to finally see my family again.

"Adalyn?"

I heard the Doctor outside my door and stuffed my papers under the bed.

"What?" I answered.

He waited a beat before tentatively asking, "Can I come in?"

My heart twinged – with fear of being discovered or out of a desire to relent, I didn't know – and I answered, "Not right now."

I heard his disappointed sigh, then his walking away. I breathed out my tension and returned to my plans.

"New Agachalara. The cultural hub of the Hopi system. Pretty crowded, but the museums are to die for."

My heart beat a little faster. This could be the chance I'd been waiting for. "Whatever," I tried to say apathetically but my voice sounded anxious.

The Doctor noticed, but thankfully misinterpreted its cause. "You might actually enjoy our outings if you'd let yourself. You're so hung up on resenting me you've actually determined to be miserable."

He set the coordinates and we flew to Agachalara.

We stepped into a busy street and merged into the crowd. The Doctor babbled about the first museum we were headed to, but the crowd swallowed his words. Anyway I was focused on finding my moment. When it came, I sank back into the crowd and started back to the TARDIS. I looked behind me but the Doctor was already lost.

Back at the TARDIS, I unlocked her with the key the Doctor had given to me a year and a half ago. My hands shook, making it difficult, but I got in and raced to my room. I reached under my bed and started stuffing my papers into a backpack. My heart was beating so fast I could hardly breathe. I ran back to the front of the TARDIS where I dug through the Doctor's belongings until I found an old box. I opened it and pulled out a dusty vortex manipulator. I strapped it on my wrist and went underneath the console where I opened a panel and carefully switched several wires. Then I opened another panel and rapidly started ripping out wires.

"What are you doing?" the TARDIS asked me, in a voice clearer than she'd ever used with me before.

"I'm sorry."

The wires sparked, burning my hands, but I kept going. Finally when the workings of my beloved were a mess, I stopped

"I'm so sorry."

*Coming out of the TARDIS, I wove my way slowly through the crowd, checking over my shoulder every other step. Suddenly I saw his head above the crowd's and he saw me. I broke into a run.

"Adalyn!"

I heard him call but didn't turn. I couldn't breathe. I'd made my choice. My choice.

Frantically I bent over the vortex manipulator and tried to fuse wires with shaking hands. Turning, I saw the Doctor. Our eyes met. His were fearful and pleading and I almost caved, but instead I turned the rotator on my wrist and disappeared.

"Adalyn!" the Doctor yelled, then ran to the TARDIS. Inside he started setting the controls to follow her but the panel sparked under his hands.

"No, no, no, no, no," He tried again frantically but the TARDIS screeched in protest.

"Fuck!" he screamed. A small fire started under the core. The Doctor cried and crumpled to the floor, holding his head in his hands.

I swirled, burning, through the Time Vortex. It was terrifying, but exhilarating. And I was finally free.

I appeared in a room full of startled aliens in white lab coats. Without pause I walked up to one and pulled the old, crushed Vortex Path Scrambler out of my pocket. I held it out to the androgynous scientist.

"Can you help me fix this?"

*listen to Run Boy Run by Woodkid

This chapter is so short but it literally took me forever to write because I wrote the whole chapter, hated it, deleted the whole thing, and started over again (tears)lol