Trigger warning for this chapter!: Mentions of rape and abuse, war/death/PTSD, anxiety/panic attacks, and self-harm! Read at your own risk. Content will not be too explicit but can be triggering to readers who have been in poor and abusive relationships.
Forgot this was finished and am rereading it anyway to try and get my brain in the mood to write something. I'm not home and for some reason with nothing to do brain doesn't want to write. But I'll try so if there's anything you want updated let me know and I'll nudge my brain into trying to write something.
The Doctor and the others woke back up in the village but something was off. They had managed to make it back to the village square where the witch's stake had been set up, charred black with embers still burning at its base. There was nobody though. No sign Fallon had been there at all. That wasn't the issue though. The issue was the sudden lack of villagers. They'd vanished again. No. No, this is something else. There's tension here. They didn't vanish. They've gone somewhere. They're planning something.
"You see, this is the real one. I just feel it. Don't you feel it?" Rory pressed Amy as the Doctor searched around.
"I feel it both places."
"I feel it here. It's just so tranquil and relaxed. Nothing bad could ever happen here."
"Something already has," the Doctor said, gesturing to the stake. "Or did you forget that they burned Fallon as a witch?"
Rory flinched, turning away from the stake with a hint of guilt. "I-I'm just saying that maybe there's no real danger here. Maybe Fallon is still safe somewhere else here."
"Not likely," the Doctor muttered, spotting someone slipping out of sight in an alleyway as a woman pulled her shutters down and curtains were pulled to cover up a bar window.
A bar with a number of villagers inside who'd been watching them.
"Not good," the Doctor breathed, sensing what was wrong now. "Very not good."
"What do you mean? Seems pretty calm to me," Rory grumbled.
"Yes, well, that's because you haven't been on the other side of a village of witch killers. They're already gathering. We need to choose quickly. Before they come after us because burning to death isn't fast."
"Doctor, what are you talking about?" Amy asked, worried before that familiar voice chimed in again.
"Doctor, Doctor, Doctor," the mercenary whined mockingly. "God, do you ever think for yourself or are you too busy trying to score points with someone already taken to bother?"
"Leave her alone," Rory complained, getting a smirk from the mercenary as they idly flipped a small blade up in the air, catching it and tossing it repeatedly.
"Yeah, sorry. Not even a little threatening. You really should work on that if you want someone to take you seriously. At least the professor over there has the whole Oncoming Storm thing going for him." They waved the blade at the Doctor before tossing it some more. "So, attack of the villagers huh? Little Miss Victim kind of gave it away but still. I love a good mob."
They vanished and popped back up, hanging upside down from a nearby tree branch.
"Should we let Amy pick? Reality or dream? We obviously know what the gooseberry's choice is and I'm sure the Doctor has made up his mind. You're the only one left. The big tie-breaker. What do you think, Amy? Let's all jump in the nearby lake and drown to wake up in the Tardis. You first."
"Leave her alone," the Doctor said sharply and the mercenary frowned before appearing right in front of him, staring him down with the blade right up against his jugular.
"Or what? How are you going to stop me? Lock me up? Run away? Attack me? You're hardly the type. All floppy hair and screwdrivers for a weapon." They scoffed, flicking his hair lightly with the blade. "Hardly impressive."
They flickered away again, popping up beside Amy with an arm around her shoulders, waving the knife at her.
"Besides, I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Amy. She can't be protected by you all the time, right? You might be busy with someone else. We all know who'd you choose, Doctor, but who would she choose?"
"Shut up. Shut up and just leave me alone," Amy complained, jerking away from the mercenary and their blade as they held their hands up in a shrug with a sigh.
"Yes, yes. I know. You can just keep avoiding the choice all day if you want. Or, well, until you die in your dream or reality, that is. Point is, you dodging the question is a bit telling."
"Drop it," the Doctor demanded, earning a raised brow from the mercenary. "Drop all of it. I know who you are."
"Do you? Do you really?"
"Course I do," the Doctor said confidently, having spotted the similarities easily the more he thought about it. "No idea how you can be here, but there's only one person in the universe who hates Fallon as much as you."
The mercenary hummed, nodding their head before leaning slightly to the side to look behind them. "Yeah, probably shouldn't worry about me. You've got company."
They turned to see the villagers slowly coming out of hiding, armed with whatever weapons they could find; some holding ropes and torches. The mercenary vanished as they approached and the Doctor held out an arm to lightly push Rory and Amy back.
"We need to run. Fast."
"Can't we just talk to them?" Amy asked.
"It's the 1500s and we're wearing zippers," the Doctor reminded them, using Fallon's words from earlier as he nudged them. "Run!"
War… Why was it always war? I grit my teeth as gunfire echoed over the trenches and I checked for the millionth time that my helmet was on tight. I could still remember the last time and didn't want another repeat.
"Nervous?" A nearby soldier asked, offering me a grimace of a smile that I didn't return. "I heard there were peace talks recently. Even the pope got involved. We might get a break."
I scoffed, grip tightening on my rifle as I dug through my uniform for a smoke. "Peace talks rarely come through this early in war."
Another soldier who'd been listening in came over and pat the man on the shoulder. "Don't mind him. Turner is a bit of a stickler. Rarely looks hopeful for anything except for a good meal."
I shot the man a glare as he chuckled but then the messenger came running through, shouting the orders that had been passed down from the generals. With Christmas around the corner, everyone had been hoping for a break from the fighting. Provisions were low, ammunition was harder to find, and the lost hope of returning home to see loved ones had brought morality down quickly. Now, we were being told to march back out again. The soldiers went quiet and began to prepare, no one looking eager to be marching out but having no real choice in the matter. Then, the command came.
Men scrambled over the trenches and charged forward on both sides. I couldn't hear anything but screams, gunshots, and my own heartbeat as I fired my own shots. Bullets whizzed by, catching a soldier on my right but I pressed on, taking out one man, then another. An enemy threw themselves at me and I twisted my weapon around, grimacing as they fought against it and their knife dug into my shoulder. I swung them off and turned the gun around, prepared to shoot but froze. Both of us were breathing hard, staring at one another in desperation. We didn't want this. Not really, but this was war. This was what happened. People fight because they have no choice. Not if they want to live and want their families to live.
"Just do it," the mercenary hissed in my ear. "Why are you hesitating? He stabbed you! He was going to kill you! You've been through war before. You know what happens when you start to care."
I grimaced, remembering another soldier I'd let off who'd jumped up to kill me. I steadied my gun again but still couldn't shoot.
"Come on! Do it! Shoot him!"
Then, a familiar sound cut through the noise of war. A whirring, grinding sound that made me stiffen and remember someone. Someone I was forgetting.
Fallon.
"Grenade!"
I turned, seeing something fly through the air, glancing back at the soldier my weapon was aimed at as his own eyes filled with dread. I cursed, throwing my gun and grabbing him, hauling him over the nearest trench away from the grenade and diving after him to cover him. The blast went off and pain rippled through my back, but once the dust cleared, the German stared at me in shock. He was saying something I couldn't hear with the ringing from the grenade in my ears, but I offered him a small grimace of a smile.
"Es tut mir Leid." (I am sorry.)
He pulled me off him, calling out to me with apparent concern as he tried to staunch my bleeding, but I couldn't hear anything at this point. Still, I felt… at peace.
Everyone woke up on the Tardis, curled in their clothes and shivering.
"Ah, it's colder," Amy stuttered out as the Doctor spoke up.
"The four of us have to agree, now, which is the dream."
"It's this, here," Rory pressed but Fallon shook her head.
"D-Don't be daft. I was burned at the stake in your fucking village and now I'm being passed around through old memories. They might be real memories, b-but they're not reality."
"But the science is all wrong here," Amy pointed out. "Burning ice?"
"No, no, no. Ice can burn. Sofas can read. It's a big universe," the Doctor explained. "We have to agree which battle to lose. All of us, now."
"Okay, which world do you think is real?" Amy asked him.
"This one."
"No, the other one," Rory countered, making the Doctor turn to him in annoyance.
"Yeah, but are we disagreeing or competing?"
"Competing? Over what?" Amy asked as all eyes turned to her in disbelief. "Oh."
"How long until death here?" Fallon asked, bringing them all back to the matter at hand.
"Nine minutes till impact."
"What temperature is it?"
"Who cares," Fallon bit out as they got up and Amy took some scissors to the blankets she'd found before. "It's cold. Point is, we need to choose while also not being selfish," she said, giving Rory a pointed look. "I get it. Big wonderful village life, baby on the way, whatever but last I checked, you're also potential charcoal for the witch hunters so stop being thick for a moment and think. I say we all pick this one as real. If we're wrong, we have nine minutes to deal with it and I'd much rather be here than any more of my memories where I die, thanks."
"Can't we call for help?" Rory asked, picking up a phone from the console.
"Yeah, because the universe is really small and there's bound to be someone nearby," the Doctor grumbled before Amy handed them the blankets she'd cut a hole into.
"Put these on."
"Oh, a poncho. The biggest crime against fashion since lederhosen," Rory drawled as Fallon shot him a look.
"First off, that's rude to the Mapuche who invented ponchos and Austria or Germany. Whoever invented lederhosen first. Second, you're welcome to take it off and freeze."
He curled further into the poncho with a frown but stopped complaining as the Doctor checked his watch.
"Our time's running out. If we fall asleep here we're in trouble. If we could divide up, then we'd have an active presence in each world, but the mercenary is switching us between the worlds. Why? What's the logic?"
"Tormenting mostly," the mercenary chimed in, popping up behind them with a grin as they whipped around. "Sorry. Was I not supposed to answer that? Were you speaking rhetorically? It's hard to tell when you constantly talk to yourself like no one else is listening."
"God, I hate you," Fallon grumbled as they snorted.
"Oh, sweetie. You stopped believing in God ages back and honestly, the feeling's mutual. I'll have you know, you were a real party pooper in that last memory. Should have just taken the shot."
"That's not how it went," Fallon argued, earning a raised brow.
"Isn't it though? I mean, you've got so many memories lying around up there are you sure you're not forgetting something terrible you did? I've barely gotten started with you. There's so much to unpack. Oh, but the Doctor wants to split up, yes? I suppose that could be arranged. I can have a nice chat with our lovely companion," the mercenary chirped, appearing behind Amy. "Maybe I'll keep her, and you can have Pointy Nose to yourself for all eternity, should you manage to clamber aboard some sort of reality."
Rory and the Doctor started to sag then, being the only two who could hear the twittering birds for now.
"Can you hear that?" Rory breathed, stumbling.
"What? No," Amy said, growing worried as they collapsed. "Rory? Doctor? Don't leave me."
"Amy, Amy, Amy. God, we're going to have fun, aren't we?" The mercenary hummed as they fell asleep and Fallon shifted between them and Amy.
"Leave her alone. It's me you want to mess with anyway, isn't it?"
"Yes. yes, I suppose you're right but see, funny thing is, despite that whole tough outer appearance you've always had one big weakness." The mercenary drew their knife again and pointed it at Fallon, the tip of it touching her chin, though she didn't flinch away in the slightest. "You always lie about how much you care for others. It's why messing with Amy has you trying to protect her. It's why your loneliness as an immortal always brought you back to civilization, back to people. It's why you always end up lying to yourself about how cruel others are."
Fallon grit her teeth tight with anger. "I know how cruel people can be."
"Do you?" The mercenary questioned, running the edge of the blade lightly down her jawline. "Should I start a list? Ann Putnam who accused you and Bridget Bishop of witchcraft back in Salem in 1692 when you protected her from a man in the forest. Benedict Arnold who defected to the British after being your friend for years in 1780. Margret Stevens who willingly had an affair with you but then told her abusive husband who had you thrown into prison in 1865. Lovely husband Jonathan who you felt was trustworthy enough to tell that you were immortal only for him to lock you away in an asylum. And the top of the list, Silas Thorton who assaulted, beaten, and raped you consistently for years while you disillusioned yourself into trusting that he was a good person because you were so damn desperate for affection."
Fallon threw a fist faster than Amy could blink but it phased right through the mercenary who just cackled.
"Too late! You could try to hit me all day and it wouldn't make a dent! Amy's already heard what a stupid, ridiculous, shameful person you are. I almost regret not having the others here to listen in!"
Fallon grit her teeth tight, rigid and keeping her back to Amy who was struggling to digest what the mercenary had revealed to her.
"And now the Doctor. Ooh, I can't wait to see how he fucks things up for you. His little Fallon. All alone without knowing anything about him. Who knows? He might even change his mind and run off with his companion someday. Maybe someday soon, right, Amy?"
Amy swallowed thickly, not wanting to get involved in this again. She'd already experienced an angry Fallon and despite the woman saying she didn't get jealous, there was still a lot of tension between them. This new information had only made that worse. Amy finding out what had happened to Fallon had obviously put a dent in the woman's armor. Fallon had initially appeared much like the Doctor. Someone strong, infallible, someone who was older and wiser and more mature than the rest of the world. But this? This felt like Amy had stumbled across something she should never have known about. It felt dark and dirty, and made Fallon's seemingly tough image shatter and crumble into a million pieces. It made Amy look again and see that Fallon was far different than she'd first thought.
She wasn't any different than a human. She still felt pain and anger and heartbreak like anyone else. Even now, Amy could see that there was fear in her eyes, uncertainty. No one was supposed to have found out about these things, about her darkest secrets, but now Amy knew. Not the Doctor or someone close to her, but Amy who she'd only just met and hadn't seemed to like very much. That was Amy's fault, she knew, but now it all seemed to make sense. Everything Fallon had said before confused her and made her frustrated. Amy wished the woman would just admit that she was jealous of her flirting with the Doctor. Turns out, there was a whole underlying issue that explained everything.
Fallon wasn't jealous. She never had been, just as she said. She was angry with Amy because Amy had done something terrible and thought it was okay. Thought that just because the Doctor was a guy, was older and more mature, was only lightly pushing her away that her advancing on him wasn't a big deal. But in the eyes of an abuse victim, of a rape victim, everything she'd done was far worse than that. Fallon had been on the other side of that and Amy had incidentally rekindled all those memories and fears.
Amy felt sick now, knowing how what she'd done must have looked to Fallon. She'd tried to do something terrible and hadn't even thought of what someone on the other end of that would feel. The Doctor or otherwise. Now, they were both paying for it. Amy had found out why Fallon was upset and Fallon was being tormented by this mercenary person over what happened. Something needed to be done. Someone needed to step up and right now, Fallon wasn't in the position to. She was trying but it was suddenly obvious to Amy now just how broken she was with every new jab the mercenary spat.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" She said, stepping up beside Fallon who gave her the briefest of uneasy glances. "The Doctor knows you, but he's not telling me who you are. And he always does. Takes him a while sometimes, but he tells me. Tells us," she corrected, giving Fallon as supportive of a glance as she could. "So you're something different."
"Oh, you think he trusts you? Really?" The mercenary scoffed.
"Actually, yes."
"Alright then. If you two know so much, what happened to his people?" They asked, only to hold a hand up when Fallon went to speak up. "And don't tell me the obvious, 'Oh, there was a war and his people died.' No, no. I want to know what he did because that's an awful lot of guilt for someone who was just a soldier."
Both women were silent, neither having been told the actuality of what happened.
"What's wrong? You don't know? Come on, really? The woman who ran away with the handsome hero and the immortal who has nowhere else to go. Neither of you know? But, I thought he trusts you?"
"Stop it," Fallon snapped angrily. "I told him I would wait. He's waiting for me so—"
"So you'll wait for him? Oh, okay. That answers everything," the mercenary drawled with a roll of their eyes. "Not. Honestly, at what point do you realize he won't ever tell you anything? Hm? When he finds out about Silas?"
"Shut up," Fallon bit out, taking a threatening step toward them again. "Stop saying his name."
"What for? You'll never forget it, so why should I stop mentioning him?" They challenged and something about what they said made Fallon pause, unnoticed as they sighed. "Ah, but we best get you back to your boys, Amy. They'll listen to you for sure. Or, well, Rory will. The Doctor's fifty-fifty with this one around." They idly waved at Fallon. "I'll just leave her here. Let her freeze for now. She's gotten a bit boring."
"Asshole," Fallon spat as they started to walk off and Amy sank to the floor as she was sent to the other dream.
"Sticks and stones, love."
I shivered in the Tardis, searching for more blankets and waiting for the Doctor, Amy, and Rory to wake up. I'd already abandoned my poncho to give to Amy and found a few more blankets for Rory and one for the Doctor too. I can freeze if needed, but they're not dressed for this. Frost was already gathering on things and I tried to get some response from the Tardis, but the only thing working was the monitor showing the star. My only hope was that they would make the right decision and somehow come back to the Tardis.
But that's not right either. None of this is. I know who that trickster is. I know who I am. I just need to think. I shook as a chill rolled up my back and begrudgingly grabbed one spare blanket as I shifted the others closer together. It wouldn't have been the first time I dealt with cold and froze to death. I knew what needed to be done, how best to keep warm. I looked for anything I could use and begrudgingly began tearing the blanket into strips. Ice clung to everything but I knew that if I could light a fire, we had a small chance to buy some time.
Not much and not for long, but some time is better than none and I can't think like this. I clenched my chattering teeth and went over to the console, muttering an apology under my breath as I found a possible fuel line and disconnected it enough to soak one of the rags. I then searched for an electrical wire and started pulling them from the console, hoping one of them had enough power to give off some sparks. Nothing was working though. Either the fuel wasn't fuel, or there was no power, or everything was too cold and covered in ice to work. My fingers were growing numb though and ice was soaking into my clothes. I knew the others wouldn't be much better and finally grew frustrated, tossing the cloth to the ground with a curse.
"Dammit!"
"Now, now," the mercenary chimed as I sank to my knees and shivered, leaning against the console and glaring at them as they hovered near the others. "No need to shout."
"F-Fuck off."
"God, you're so rude," they complained, folding their arms over their chest. "I was going to mention that your friends over here chose this world as reality but now I don't know if I want to."
I weakly flipped them the bird and they rolled their eyes with a sigh as the others woke up.
"Yes, well, I expected that response. Trying to make a fire was cute but I suppose now that you've all made your choice it's time to warm you up. You got it right, after all. With seconds to spare."
They moved to the Tardis controls and powered the ship back on, apparently steering us away from the cold star as they rambled.
"Hope you all had fun in your little dream worlds, memory worlds, whatever you want to call them. You're welcome to ponder on them a bit as I'm sure you've all gone through a lot. Some more than others," they said with a chuckle before their smile fell and they leaned back against a railing. "I know when I've been beaten though, so I guess I should leave. Enjoy your real lives. Hope they're as boring as usual."
The mercenary vanished and I sagged against the console as the Doctor went to use the controls and the other two held tight to one another.
"D-Doctor," I muttered, grabbing his arm as he neared me and he draped his extra blanket over me. "T-This is—"
"I know," he said, offering me a grimace of a smile as he ran a hand over my head and lightly kissed my forehead. "I'm taking care of it."
I sighed a breath of relief and curled into the blanket as I shivered; the Tardis letting out a noise that caught Amy's attention.
"What are we doing now?"
"Me? I'm going to blow up the Tardis."
"What?" Rory questioned in disbelief.
"The mercenary," I said, shaking rather badly now that things were warming up. "D-Dreams can be controlled. They went a-and controlled this place too. The Doctor couldn't get us away from the star but they could. D-Doesn't make sense."
The Doctor nodded, starting up the ship. "There was misinformation, red herrings, malice, and I could have done without the limerick. But they were always very keen to make us choose between dream and reality."
"But they conceded," Rory pressed as the Tardis began to shake violently. "This isn't a dream!"
"It is," I argued. "They were constantly doing things here t-that didn't make sense. Got rid of the gun but brought it back, steering us away from the star, turning on the heating, making birdsong here to take us elsewhere. Everything was a dream. All of it."
"How do you know that?" Amy asked, worried as the Doctor and I spoke up at the same time.
"We know who they are."
The Doctor stood in the console room, lightly holding little specks in his hands as the others stepped into the room to meet up. Fallon looked a little worn out and the Doctor gave her a glance that she lightly brushed off as Amy gestured to the speck the Doctor was holding.
"Um, what's that?"
"A speck of psychic pollen from the candle meadows of Karass don Slava. Must have been hanging around for ages. Fell in the time rotor, heated up, and induced a dream state for all of us."
"So, that was the mercenary then?" Rory questioned once the Doctor lightly tossed them back into space. "Those little specks?"
"No, no. No. Sorry, wasn't it obvious? The mercenary was Fallon."
All eyes went to her as she eyed the speck quietly.
"Psychic pollen. It's a mind parasite. It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice…" The Doctor eyed Fallon as he explained. "...turns it against you. Fallon's immortal, has lived for millennia, apparently. It had a lot to go on."
"But why didn't it feed on us too?" Amy asked.
"The darkness in you pair, it would've starved to death in an instant. I choose my friends with great care. Otherwise, I'm stuck with my own company, and you know how that works out." He gave Fallon a small smile. "Fallon's a bit different. We met by chance and are similar in a lot of ways. Couldn't let her go."
She shot him a look as Amy spoke up again.
"But those things they said about you, Fallon… You don't think any of that's true."
Fallon watched her for a minute, silently and the Doctor was quick to step in.
"Amy, right now a question is about to occur to Rory. And seeing as the answer is about to change his life, I think you should give him your full attention."
Rory was confused for a moment but then realized the Doctor was right. "Yeah. Actually, yeah."
"There it is," the Doctor hummed, taking Fallon's hand lightly and pointing toward the hall. "We'll just give you two a moment."
He stepped out with Fallon and lead her through the halls. She was a little confused as they completely bypassed her bedroom and kept going before he stopped her in front of a door. He offered her a reassuring smile that she raised a brow at before he led her into the observatory. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around at the stars and projections covering the entire room, making it look as though they were standing in the middle of space. He gave her a minute to get comfortable and lightly led her to some cushions on the ground.
"Where are we?" She asked softly, sitting on the cushion and looking at the stars.
"Physically? We're in the observatory on the Tardis currently looking over the Andromeda Galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth." He settled down beside her and looked up at the stars himself. "I thought you might like it."
They were quiet for a bit before she spoke again.
"You're not going to ask?"
He lightly shook his head. "When you're ready. That's what I've always said and I stand by that… even if I'd rather know. I'm… sorry if I pressured you before."
Fallon shook her head, falling backward and lying on the ground with her hands clasped over her chest. "It's fine. I… I was doing the same." She glanced over at him as he lay down too. "Sorry."
He cracked a small smile. "Seems we were both just a bit curious, eh?"
They both went quiet again but the Doctor took initiative this time. They couldn't keep letting their past get between them.
"My people… The Time Lords… They all died," he said, eyeing the stars above as little comets flew past stars and planets. "It's always been something I've tried to forget. Not because I don't care but… because I'm the one who caused it. The Time War was just between us and the Daleks but no one plays fair in war. Both sides made poor decisions, dragged in other people, other planets. I was just a soldier at first… then I ran away. I hid on Earth while everyone fought until they called me back again and I had no choice. Then… the Time Lords decided they were going to end it. End everything by using the Final Sanction."
Fallon stayed silent as he explained, taking a deep breath before continuing.
"The Final Sanction was the end-all-be-all. They wanted to use it to wipe out everything in the universe and become rulers of what was left by being the ultimate consciousness. You heard Rassilon before I regenerated. He's the… president of the Time Lords. It was his decision to make and everyone agreed with it because the war had dragged on so long… everyone was losing their minds. I was the only one left who could stop them. So… I stole the Moment—the only thing that could stop them—hid away, and used it to end the war by getting rid of the Time Lords and Daleks. I got rid of two species—my own people—to save the universe and my punishment was I survived after they were all gone."
The Doctor grew quiet, hearts aching for his people once more and the decision he had to make back then.
"It's not… a bad choice," Fallon said then, drawing his attention as she continued to look up at the stars. "A few lives for the many. The ultimate trolley problem… It's sad, of course. No one should have to make a choice like that but… when you have no other options, a decision like that doesn't make you a bad person." She turned to look at him as he stared sadly back. "It just makes you the unfortunate one who had to do it and… well, I suppose it makes you the bravest one. Not every person would have been able to do it and while there are probably people who are upset about it, there's an infinite amount of people out there who are alive because you made that choice."
He smiled a little, turning back to the stars as some of that age-old pressure eased. He closed his eyes with a deep breath, letting it out. "Thank you."
Fallon hummed, eyeing a ringed planet up above them for a moment before speaking. "I've done a lot of… terrible things."
"You've lived a long life," he countered, earning a small scoff.
"That's no excuse. You've lived long too but that dream thing went after me. I might have lived longer but… that doesn't excuse what I've done. I can't even remember all of it. There are so many things I've forgotten and sometimes… sometimes it feels like I was never human in the first place. I know we've talked about that before but this… this dark version of me just sort of… dragged it all up again."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor muttered but she shook her head.
"It's not your fault. You couldn't have known. If anything, it's my fault for not dealing with my past properly. I always ran away from it. Always. Bad things happened and I ran, changed my name, my appearance, my job. I tried to become a totally different person in order to forget what happened. I tried to just… live multiple lives. Dying became a chance to start over, try something different. Be someone different. In doing so, I never really worked through things. Not that it was possible to seek any decent professional help back in the day but… surely something would have been better than running."
The Doctor rolled over to look at her, resting his head on his arm. "You didn't have friends? All those years?"
Fallon's expression shifted into something pained. "It was… hard. Early on, people were scarce. Intelligence was scarcer. Early on was just about learning how to survive. I remember that much. Then… Then, I got lonely and did something stupid."
"Your first husband," the Doctor remembered and she closed her eyes with a grimace. "You don't have to tell me."
"No… No, I think… I think it's about time I explained," she said with a heavy sigh. "That dream Fallon gave it away anyway and Amy knows some of it but… but I need to say it. I need to explain it. He's… He's the only one I've always remembered because of how he hurt me and… and I shouldn't give him that satisfaction. He's dead and gone and I need to move on from that. Hiding it away out of shame is just… it's just what he wanted."
The Doctor reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze as she gathered her courage and explained. The anger the Doctor felt toward the man only grew the more she spoke about what he did. The beatings, the assault, the torment and torture he put her through, and the fact that he made her feel so small for all those years that she'd never felt she could get away from him and be someone better. Even now, everything he'd done made it hard for her to speak about some things. Tears were shed and she still did her best to get through it all, and when she finished it took everything in him to hold back from curling around her and hiding her away from all those nightmares. He had to resist because that man had made her so sensitive that even the gentlest of touches could cause her harm when she wasn't ready.
When she finished, he gave her time to recover, letting her calm herself back down as he ran his thumb over the back of her hand—the only touch he'd been able to do while she explained. She cracked a grimace of a smile then, wiping at her face with her free hand, throat a bit raw from crying.
"Y-You probably think I'm stupid. That I-I just stayed with him like that for so long knowing what he was doing was wrong—"
"No. No, that's not true," he pressed, sitting up and gripping her hand tightly. "I understand being lonely, Fallon. Really, I do. You had been alone for so, so long that he probably seemed like a miracle to you. I might not understand what you felt but I know what that's like, being alone and having no one. It's hard and giving up companionship of any kind is difficult, even when it's not going well because you don't want to end up alone again. Fallon, you just wanted a home and I could never insult you for that."
Tears were falling again as she held his hand tight and draped an arm over her eyes, grimacing as she held back sobs.
"I-I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she muttered and he shook his head, bringing her hand to his lips briefly.
"No. I'm sorry for making you feel as though you couldn't."
"God, a-and I did such terrible things because of him."
"You were only human, Fallon. Immortal or not, having to handle something like that changes a person. You can't blame yourself for everything you did after when he was the source of your pain for so long."
"I killed people."
"Because he hurt you," the Doctor pressed. "Fallon, look at me. Please."
She pulled her arm away and he wiped at her tears with a soft sigh.
"Fallon, you were hurt so deeply that you weren't in the right state of mind. Even I've done terrible things when I was hurt. I… After Donna, I ended up on Mars and there was someone there who was very important to history. I should have left. She and her crew were supposed to die and they would have been remembered and their sacrifice would have started the race to the stars for humans. I was lonely and hurting and didn't feel I could face you just yet, and… I made a mistake. For a moment, I thought I was better than the laws of time. I tried to save them to feel better about myself. I didn't care about them. Not really. That woman ended up… ended up killing herself to ensure time went the way it should. I made that mistake because I wasn't in the right frame of mind. It's the same with you. That wasn't your fault and you've learned from it, right?"
She nodded slightly, leaning into the palm of his hand on her cheek.
"We both have and that's what matters. We learned from our past mistakes and we're doing everything we can to move on and make things better. We can't forget what we did wrong but we can use that to ensure we don't do it again. Besides," he offered with a small smile as he brought her hand up to kiss again. "It's because of all our mistakes that we found each other, right?"
Fallon cracked a small smile and a short laugh, making his smile grow. "H-How could I forget?" She said, reaching up and pulling him toward her for a kiss that he relished in.
They pulled away slightly, both relieved and more relaxed than they'd ever been.
"I love you," the Doctor hummed, making her smile a little again as she sat up and kissed his cheek.
"I love you too," she replied, making his hearts skip a beat at her first admittance to her feelings. "God, it's been so long since I've said that," she murmured in his ear as he kissed her cheek in return.
"Suppose I'll just need to make sure you're saying it all the time now, hm?" He said, wrinkling his nose a bit as she got up, pulling away from him a little.
"I'll… try to say it more often," she offered, tugging his hand to get him up on his feet too. "Now, come on. If we don't get back to the soon-to-be-married couple, we might never get another trip."
The Doctor pulled her back with a grumble though, as her back bumped into his chest. "Do we have to?"
Fallon rolled her eyes. "Yes. Behave."
He pouted as she stepped out of his grip but she stopped at the door to wait for him and he couldn't stay upset for long; quickly bounding after her to get them heading off to their next adventure.
