Red ⋆ Doctor Who

Chapter Eighty-seven

The Doctor has to force himself to push aside his anguish. Because he can hear the gut-wrenching sobs as they wrack through Charlotte, and they cut right through him. Stabbing him in the hearts. Rubbing salt into the already gaping wound left by the loss of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams. But he gives himself five minutes.

Five minutes to be selfish.

And he lets out a deep, guttural cry and presses his palms so firmly against his eyes that it hurts. They're wet with tears when he straightens up and drops his hands, staring at the Angel with a furrowed brow, gaping wordlessly with sharp, jagged breaths. He cries out as he looks back at the gravestone with the names of his closest friends, his family, etched into it. And then he looks back at the Angel that has just torn his family apart like it was nothing. The Angel that has destroyed his wife with nothing but an outstretched finger. No words, no guns, no weapons at all. Just the weaponisation of time. And there's nothing the Time Lord can do to get them back.

A lord of time, beaten with his own tool.

And he knows Charlotte will be disappointed in him. Really, properly disappointed. And this may just be the thing that will make her see that he is not a hero. He is not her saviour. He isn't anything. He's just a madman in a box, and he puts her and her family in danger. And suddenly, he doesn't want her to blame him. He doesn't want to be responsible for this. For taking away her family. He wants her to tell him it's okay when he apologises, that he shouldn't blame himself, that she loves him and she knows it wasn't his fault.

But when he crouches down behind her, and he smooths his hands over her shuddering back as she wipes tears from her face and then takes a deep shaking breath, trusting that Melody will keep her eyes trained on the Angel, she doesn't even turn to look at him.

"Charlotte," he manages to say, voice raspy. She shakes her head, knowing what will leave his lips next. An apology. A plea to get her away from the Angel and back into the Tardis. Away from Amy and Rory. Forever.

"No," she refuses, not waiting to hear what he has to say.

"Honey," he says, as softly as he can manage as he puts his hands underneath her arms and tries to pull her up off of the ground.

"No!"

"Charlotte, please," he says, but she stares at the Angel with an unreadable expression, and she does not move. "Please!"

"No," she whimpers, hiding her face in her hands as so many tears stream down her cheeks that they slip through her fingers, along her knuckles and into her sleeves.

"I know, Charlotte. I'm sorry," the Doctor says, still trying to pry her off of the floor.

"You... you have to fix it... Doc... Doctor, please. Bring them... bring them back," she pleads with her husband, barely able to get the words out, and he feels as though she has punched her hand straight through his chest and crushed his hearts. His head spins and he sucks in a sharp breath, shaking his head because he cannot do anything, and she is going to hate him for it. "Please."

"I can't," he tells her, voice small.

"You have to," she says, refusing to accept his statement.

"Char-"

"No! You can. You always do. So just do it. Bring them back! Bring them back now!" She demands, her voice growing stronger as her devastation is replaced with anger. "That's what you do!"

"No, it isn't. Not always. I can't do anything, Charlotte," the Doctor denies, but she shakes her head again.

"We can... we can use the Vortex Manipulator. It's less bulky than the Tardis," Charlotte suggests, trying to come up with a way to get her family back to her. "We can go back. We can go back and we can get them and they'll be fine and... and..."