Earth Grazer || Doctor Who

XI. Talk To Me

“What are you doing? You don’t have to do this.” The Doctor’s voice was unsure and cautious as he paused the movie neither of them were paying any attention to anymore.

“Being honest with you. I want you to talk to me, Doctor and I feel like for that to happen than I need to talk to you first … my mom died when I was eight and I’m pretty sure that was the catalyst for every bad thing that’s happened since. My dad started dragging me all over the place, moving me from my childhood home in South Dakota to New York and then moving again to France.” Ella hesitated in the retelling of her life because she’d reached the part that was hardest to talk about.

“In France I met someone, Liam, … I thought he could have been the love of my life. He was just dazzling to me, too bad there was a monster lurking behind his pretty face.” Ella knew the Doctor was starting to understand what she was telling him as his expression darkened into someone who could burn the universe without breaking a sweat.

“What happened?” His voice sounded strained and a million miles away, Ella took a steadying breath to calm her racing heart. It didn’t work but she was too far in to back out now, fuck it.

“It got really bad one night and I had to be taken to the hospital … I could have died but I didn’t. No, it wasn’t me who died … it was the baby I was apparently pregnant with at the time … as soon as I was better, well, physically better my dad packed us up again, we had to abandon everyone we knew in our old lives, but Liam still found me.” Ella took a pause to sit up and stand to pace the room because staring up at the Doctor’s conflicting expressions made her more nervous than actually telling him about herself.

“The day before I left with you, he called me and well, you know the outcome of that, I ran away, the only thing I know how to do, and I don’t think I can go back. He will … always be there waiting.” Ella felt like she wasn’t giving enough of herself away yet, there was still an ever-present weight on her shoulders dragging her down, deeper and deeper into the dark. The woman knew that this wasn’t going to help in the slightest, but this was an important step in their friendship, learning to fully trust each other with their less than desirable pasts. Now she just had to wait for the other shoe to drop.

| |

The Doctor tossed and turned while he was supposed to be sleeping but after Ella’s painfully true story, he could not stop the thoughts racing through his head, he felt an unbearable amount of anger boiling over. He was furious at Ella’s ex-boyfriend after the revelation that the man also took away Ella’s future.

The jagged scar on her lower abdomen that she showed him suggests that she could no longer have children naturally. That information made the Doctor want to find this man and make him pay for what he had done to his friend, who had made herself a big part of his life already. All this floating through the Doctor’s troubled mind had him thinking about whether he wanted to tell Ella about his own troubles as he didn’t want to burden her with the knowledge of the Time War.

He was also deeply terrified that if he told her, then her view of him would change. He didn’t think he could handle the thought of Ella looking at him in fear or disdain. After a considerable amount of time he huffed out a breath and threw his blanket off as he made his way to Ella’s bedroom down the hallway. He was going to trust her with the darkest parts of himself just as she trusted him; he quietly knocked on her door and patiently waited for a response. It was late but the Doctor knew that Ella was most likely awake, with her insomniatic history. He honestly wasn’t certain that he would be able to work up the courage again to talk to her.

“Hey, Doc. Can’t sleep?” Ella greeted when she opened her bedroom door, she wasn’t expecting a reply to her question, it was rhetorical having already known the answer.

“I blew up my planet.” Ella didn’t react too much, having assumed a long time ago that the haunted empty look in his eyes had to be from a major loss. Instead she grabbed his hand and led him to the kitchen, fully intent on making him his favorite tea.

“So, did this happen in that war you talked about all those months ago?” The Doctor took a tentative sip of his tea before he had to answer, it took a while to get the words out but eventually he had managed to string letters together that made sense.

He told her about the war and the Daleks, the resulting destruction of his home planet and his people, she nodded and kept mostly quiet not wanting to freak him out. She stood from her spot at the round table they were situated at and walked around it until she was behind his chair, slowly she wrapped her arms around him. At first, he wasn’t sure how to react, not used to soft touches like this but after some moments of hesitation he leaned into her embrace.

The Doctor was probably losing his mind, but he couldn’t stop the tears that slipped down his face; it was like all the emotions that he’d been suppressing for years just exploded. Somewhere amid the tears and sniffling, he also told his favorite human what happens when his body dies because after all this time she deserved to know, and he didn’t want her to be confused if he died in her presence.

“So, does that mean your people are a bit flexible when it comes to the gender thing?”

“Yes … is that a problem?”

“No, why would it be?” Ella didn’t understand what the Doctor was truly asking – would she still want to be with him if his whole body changed?