Fight or Flight ( Doctor Who Fanfiction )

Jailer

"I'll be with you in a moment River!"

The door slammed shut, and I jumped back from the opening of the hallway into the control room. I listened to him rustle around the console, and peered around the wall.

It wasn't that I was scared of him seeing me, exactly.

It was hours after I told him I was going to bed and I didn't want to deal with his reaction.

Didn't matter, apparently.

"Why are you doing up?" He sounded angry, a tone which fell - as usual - on my entirely deaf ears.

I walked into sight like I'd been caught somehow, but glared down at him as he stared up at me in his three piece white suit.

"I couldn't sleep. I'll show myself out, don't worry. I didn't want to see you either."

There was a loud clatter when I turned away, and I turned to see a toolbox spinning across the glass floor, and him, advancing up the stairs towards me without meeting my eye.

He stopped just short of actually crashing into me.

Exhausted, angry.

I was used to his temper, he to mine.

"You nearly died. You likely did."

"Sure," I answered blankly.

"So, why do you insist on giving yourself no time to recover?"

"Do I look dead to you? No? Then I am recovered."

"Omara - " He reached towards my arm.

I pulled away.

"You said you wouldn't touch me," I snarled.

He dropped his hand, looking weary. "Please just go to sleep."

"You can't make me."

"I don't have to make you. This is my ship, Omara. Do as you're told."

I laughed aloud, cornering him against the railing, leaning my hands on each side of him but never touching. "You've been doing this, lately. Telling me what to do."

"I'm starting to think you need it. I'm gentle with you, and you run yourself into the ground. You treat everyone like they're disposable. Including yourself."

"Everyone is disposable," I snarled, hating to hear my father's words slide so easily off my tongue.

He lifted his chin so our lips weren't quite so close together.

He stared down at me for a second, eyes so cold I felt the color start to drain from my face.

"Then why are you here?" His voice was freezing.

He moved me away from where I kept him crowded against the railing, and walked down the staircase, leaving me shivering.

He pulled a couple of levers, and I braced myself as the ship shocked into flight.

Because fuck River, I guess.

When we landed, he marched back up the stairs, and for a moment I thought he might be about to fucking drag me. But he just put his hand on my back and guided me down the glass steps ahead of him.

I didn't fight, mostly because I was curious to know what his plan was.

He pulled the door open so hard it banged against the wall, and pushed me to the rim of the floor, where the cement ground rose up to meet me. Cement roof, rather.

Glimmering color, a wave of sound.

Tokyo.

I'd know it anywhere. I could feel the buzz of familiarity on my skin as I looked out across the empty rooftop, out at the city that swallowed me whole for years.

It could swallow me up again.

I stepped out, looking around, flushed with a sense of affection for this place. A confidence that if I hopped off this roof with nothing except the clothes on my back, I could make it.

"A couple days after the wedding. No one here would ask questions."

The sight of the city turned cold in my eyes.

I turned to the Doctor, still leaning against the open doorway in his stupid suit and glaring. It was like he'd tipped a bucket of ice water over me.

"Is this your way of telling me to leave?"

The words sounded weaker than I wanted them to. I wanted him to be scared of me, of what I was capable of. But I just sounded hurt.

His expression softened slightly. "I didn't say that. But I am so tired of feeling like I'm forcing you to stay. If you want to go, then yes, Omara. Yes, I am telling you to go."

I looked out at the city, and pulled a couple of strands of hair out of my eyes.

"Amy would hate you for letting me go back."

"I don't answer to Amelia."

"Rory would hate you for it, too."

"I'm not your fucking jailer, Omara."

I spun around to stare at him, never having heard him swear like that before.

His anger was palpable.

"I didn't invite you to please them. I wanted to please you. If their marriage is to much for you, if I am too much, if you're finished here, then go."

Everything went oh-so-quiet and still, then.

I nodded.

Looked around.

Blinked twice.

"I don't understand."

I did understand. But I couldn't find it in myself to dive off the roof like he expected.

"Omara, I - all I seem to be able to do is hurt you, lately. Go, recover in peace."

"I never asked for that."

"You never ask anything for yourself!" He advanced on me. "I'd call it selfless but I think you just don't pay attention to yourself. So I'm flipping coins and pulling cards, trying to give you what you need."

"I don't need you to - "

"I need to!"

I stared back at him, frozen.

The look on his face suggested that he wanted to catch those words and shove them back down his throat. But he couldn't, so he just swallowed hard.

"I need to make this better."

This was a confession. I was his priest.

I stared at him, swallowing down on the lump in my throat. "What if you can't?"

He sighed, leaning his head back and shoving his hands into his pockets. The anger was long-since evaporated.

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I'm sorry you don't feel safe here anymore. I wish I could understand why."

I managed, "I'm used to it."

He silently mouthed a curse at the sky. "You shouldn't be."

"Maybe not." I shrugged half-heartedly. "But here we are. You're not my jailer, Angel." I walked past him and opened the Tardis door.

I glanced out at the lights, longing to disappear into the night, leave it all behind, and sighed half-heartedly - "I am."