'I love you, it's ruining my life' - Taylor Swift
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"Your world would be much better off if you lost me."
"Don't say things like that. What difference does it even make? Either way, I'm travelling with you, and I'm in danger. One way we'll both just...
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The silence in their bedroom is almost unbearable to the Doctor. Cherry has barely spoken a word to him since she returned to the Tardis empty handed. He calmed her down after a while, moving her to their bedroom, where she sank into the sheets of their bed, not even stopping to take her cowboy boots off.
He takes them off for her, delicately unzipping them and pulling them off of her feet, because he knows if she were in her right mind, she would hate having them on in their bed. And then he settles down beside her, resting one hand on her thigh, tracing little patterns over her bare skin.
"Charlotte," he whispers, willing her to meet his eyes. "Sweetheart, please talk to me."
"I'm sorry," she breathes out, repeating one of the few things she has said to him since he got back. He doesn't understand what it is she is apologising for exactly, but it fills him with dread every time those words leave her lips. What does she have to be sorry for? What could be so awful that she cannot tell him? What on Earth could the spoiler she has spoken of be to have upset her so much?
His death? He doubts it. She was better at hiding that last time.
Amy and Rory's maybe? But he never would have gotten her away from them and out of the console room if that were the case. And he thinks Cherry would probably tell him. She'd risk the paradoxes to save them. She'd beg him to figure something out. To change their fates.
And it cannot be Melody's because he knows how her story ends, and Cherry will never find out.
That only leaves one thing that could have upset Cherry so much. Her own death. Her own death, which the Doctor will undoubtedly be responsible for because he cannot keep her safe forever. Because she is too good for him, and he will never be good enough for her.
Because he is selfish.
And the worst part is, he can tell from her reaction that she is not mad at him. She is not upset that she is dead, even. He can feel her guilt. It radiates from her, and it's all too familiar for him, a feeling he has tried his best to forget. She feels bad for the state his future self is no doubt in. Of course she is.
He almost wishes that she would not be so selfless for once. That she could put herself first for once.
If that is really why she is so upset, because he won't ever really know where she has been or why she is so distraught until he lives it himself, he wishes she could just be upset about the absolute tragedy her death would actually be.
That she would care that he stole her childhood away from her, ruined her entire life and then led her by the hand to her death like he knew he would. Like he always does.
Maybe if she cared, he would stop. If he knew that, she would never forgive him. If he knew that, he was ruining them. He might be selfless then. Let her live in peace. Maybe he would settle down with her? They could just live a normal, happy life.
