Fight or Flight ( Doctor Who Fanfiction )

Rebel Flesh

The Doctor was trying to make amends. That much was clear.

He wasn't entertaining my temper anymore, and he wasn't putting up his own either. If I put up a fight, he tried to concede or compromise as soon as possible. Since the fighting had become so one-sided, I felt more and more like a bully.

More and more, I was remembering how it was who who'd decided to brutalize his affections in the first place. I was the one who decided to punish him for something he knew nothing about.

More than once, I wondered if my distance and unkindness was what drove him to fall back in time during his final days and seek connection from a completely different version of me.  I couldn't think about that for long, though, because it made me angry at him all over again for something he couldn't take accountability for yet.

In times like these, I found my thoughts drifting towards River Song: what had she seen of us, and how did she interact with us all so neutrally?

I'd already dropped out of the game of darts, so I was trying to survive these thoughts while zoning out of the absurdly-loud music that I had requested.

He was right when he told me I was running myself into the ground.

"Omara."

I looked up with a start, and the Doctor immediately held up his hands like I might spring at him.

"I just wanted to see how you're feeling."

Ah, yes. My physician.

I sat up straight and lifted my chin. "All yours."

Pleased, he ruffled my hair aside to press some buzzing contraption against my scalp.

"Anything?"

He meant pain. Still keeping track of what seemed like a half-dozen concussions.

"A little."

"Hm. And that was the worst one. You should be feeling better overall, in a couple days."

And he pulled away.

I turned towards him, dropping my voice a bit so the Ponds couldn't hear. "Do you have to call me that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't used to call me Omara, all of the time."

The Doctor gradually started calling me "'Mara" when we'd met, emulating Amy and Rory as our relationship became more friendly, and then immediately discontinued the nickname after declaring abstinence from me.

He looked at me thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I remember you saying once that it reminds you of your father."

I rolled my eyes to myself, hating that I had to say these next words to him, of all people. "No one uses my full name all of the time like that except for him."

"What would you like me to call you?"

"Anything else? Anything at all. I don't mind my whole name, just not all of the time. Please."

It was small, and also too much to ask.

But I was trying to get into a new headspace, and the loss of my nickname was this constant reminder that he was, on some level, angry with me. It was so small, but maybe it had been grating on me like that for months, long before I realized it, making it even harder to keep my head above water.

We may very well have been friends with benefits, but the wall between the Doctor and I had cut me off from a friend, plain and simple. Even if I couldn't have him the way I wanted, maybe if I could find a way to rescue that part of our relationship...