She weaved between the old boxes, trunks and bits of wardrobe. Her fam were dealing with 'human things'. Yaz had a birthday party for an aunt; Ryan and Graham were going to a football game with Aaron. This was the first time the Doctor had been alone in a long time. She narrowed her eyes as she looked forward to the cloth that was draped unceremoniously over a piece of furniture. She took a long breath; the air was dry and musty. She reached up and pulled the cloth from the furniture revealing a body-length mirror underneath.
"Hello, again." She said as she looked into the mirror. She looked past her own reflection to that of a little girl cowering in the background, her tiny hand tightly clutching a red balloon.
The girl narrowed her eyes as she looked out from the mirror. "You're…" The small girl frowned and then stepped out from the box she was hiding behind. "Pity, I had hoped this time, maybe you had died. The last time I saw you; you were ever so sad…I had hoped maybe what you were saying was true and that your hearts had really broken and you would actually let them stop forever…"
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I changed my mind." The Doctor said quietly as she lowered herself down onto her haunches and looked at the little girl eye to eye. The Doctor put her hand up to the mirror's glass. "I'm so sorry."
"Come to check on your littlest prisoner then? Another year already?" The little girl leaned against a crate and glowered at the Doctor. "Satisfied then? I'm still here, just like all the other years, like I will be every year forever…"
"Satisfied?" The Doctor asked as she looked in the girl's eyes. "No, not satisfied. You still don't understand do you? Don't understand what you're doing here…"
"I understand the irony perfectly." The girl replied sharply, narrowing her eyes. "You are putting mayflies like me in our place, teaching me a lesson by putting me in an ironic undying existence where I can do nothing with the gifted immortality you have so sanctimoniously allowed me!"
"You hunted me down; you were going to steal my lives…" The Doctor started.
"Of which you have had so many, and for so long, how long has it been now? How long?" The little girl shouted. "I've seen you in three different bodies and now a fourth; I've lost count how many times you've looked in on me." The girl turned away from the Doctor seemed to fume. "We who live so very shortly, who could do so much more…if only we were afforded a longer life. We are robbed, ROBBED of a proper existence by the very nature of our being."
"I've seen what you could do if you were afforded the lives of a Time Lord." The Doctor replied, standing back up. "Your family would burn the vortex, consume the universe, and still be hungry for more. Realities would shatter, universes would freeze, and others would burn, and you'd still want more. A longer life is not-"
"Then you try it, Time Lord!" The little girl turned and rushed the mirror glaring through the glass at the Doctor. "Why don't you die? Die, and die, and die again, over and over and over, you try only living for weeks, and see how that feels to know in such a brief time your life will simply flicker out of existence, to know the ever present, ever-closing hand of death clutching your throat!"
"I have known death, I have known the suffering of those like you…" the Doctor started.
"Pah, why are you even here?" The girl snorted, turning away from the mirror and receding into the reflection. "To gloat? To rub my nose in your victory over myself and my family?"
"Never." The Doctor said shaking her head.
"Then why?" The girl asked, cocking her head back to the Doctor.
"Hope, I guess." The Doctor said. She walked forward and knelt again, and looked up at the little girl. "Hope that maybe, maybe one day, eventually, you'll accept who and what you are. Accept that the life you have could be more, if only you made it more. That it's not the length of life, but the life that's lived that's important. Accept that even if you are limited by your biology, that you need not be limited by your spirit. Hope that you'd find contentment in what time you're given, and not envy what time is afforded to others…."
"It is easy to say that from the point of view of a nigh immortal god." The girl hissed.
"I guess it is." The Doctor said quietly. She stood up and sighed. "I can't change that, I won't change that. None the less, I can continue to hope. I can continue to wait, and I can continue to check in on you. Just in case…"
"What, that I escape your prison?" The little girl asked, sharply.
"No, just in case you learn your lesson and I can release you to live your life out here in the waking universe." The Doctor replied. "Did you never once think maybe; this wasn't just a prison to hold you in, but rather it was me giving you a chance to see, to learn, to maybe one day become better and earn your release?"
"Why would you ever release us? You said yourself we would eat the universe." The little girl turned to the Doctor who had her back to the mirror.
"I said if you got what you wanted; when you were chasing me, that you'd do that." The Doctor turned and looked to the little girl. "But if you learned your lesson, you could truly shine. This was never about beating you. It was about being kind. If I had wanted to defeat you I could've destroyed your ship with you inside of it. Instead I gave you infinite time to think over what you had done, and to understand why you were wrong, and for you to regret that and wish to do better. This isn't a prison, it's a time out. You are free to leave, as soon as you learn your lesson."
The little girl was about to respond when the Doctor turned and started to walk away. The woman disappeared behind the crates and the boxes. The little girl shook her head and turned and sat down. She had a year to reflect…