The Forgotten

Chapter 14

-/-

"What do you mean you can make them human?" Missy eyed The Doctor sceptically as she gave her now awake and hungry little boy a bottle one of the nurses had made up for them.

"Just what it sounds like." The Doctor replied yet he couldn't quite meet Missy's gaze. "Just like you did, not that you would remember. I can re-write their genetic code, turn them from a Time Lord into a human being. They'd be safe then, just two more humans in a galaxy over run by them." He explained yet still the wariness in her posture didn't abate.

"But then they'd die..." Missy began. "How is that keeping them safe?"

"Eventually everyone dies...even Time Lords." The Doctor echoed Missy's own words back to her, blue grey eyes distant and cold.

"I'm giving you what you wanted Missy, you get to keep your children, they'll grow up safe from being hunted and you'll get to live your life free from me and my messing it up....That was what you wanted wasn't it?" The Doctor asked pointedly even as he swallowed down the rolling heaving mess that was churning in his stomach.

"That was what I wanted." Missy echoed back yet there was no victory in her tone, only the lingering bitterness of defeat.

That was what she wanted wasn't it? To raise her children and keep them far away from The Doctor, to protect them, not simply as punishment for his many many transgressions against her...fine the punishment part might also be more than a touch true. "You'd give them up just like that? I don't believe it."

"Believe it...It's for the best Koschei I was always a terrible father and you...you sacrificed your life just to save them, how could I ever compete with that?"

"It is not a competition Doctor." Missy reminded him her bright blue eyes narrowing as they raked over his face looking for some sign that he was toying with her yet there was nothing but honest defeated sincerity in his face. "Thete are you sure this is the only way?"

"Unless you want to spend the rest of your limited lifespan living in the time vortex Missy." The Doctor snapped back regretting his outburst when his son began to cry. "I can't keep you all safe I think the last few days have proved that and so I am being selfish alright...I can't watch you die Kosch, I can't be responsible for their deaths, I just can't..."

"Alright." Missy's acquiescence was quiet but The Doctor would have heard it over a hundred screaming voices. "Alright we'll do this your way, make them human, but they can't ever know Doctor. They can't know what we have taken from them."

"I know."

"Do you?" Missy retorted. "Because I don't think you do? You can't go changing your mind when you get lonely. I won't have you swanning in and out of their lives."

"Kosch I know." The Doctor added firmly turning and holding her gaze. "I know this has to be goodbye."

"And you can live with that?" Missy questioned unable to resist prodding the bleeding wound that was ripping at them both.

"I will have to find a way to." The Doctor added that was settled then and the sooner they got this done the better. "I'll just go collect the Tardis and..."

"Now?" Missy couldn't believe what she was hearing, everything was moving so quickly. "Why the rush?"

"Missy I can't..." The Doctor broke off his voice breaking. He couldn't put into words how much this was going to destroy him. To be the one to silence those growing murmurs in the back of his head, to in essentials finish the job he had started back on that asteroid. "It's not safe...the longer we leave it the greater the chance someone might discover what they are."