Birth of a Time Lady

Forgiveness

"Please, Opera. Wait! We need to talk about this!"

The Doctor was running after her, but she refused to let him catch up. She'd already sped out of the dungeons, and out the front door. Now she was headed for the lake. Her sides were burning, and she was fighting for breath, but she'd be damned if she was going to let her past catch up to her without a fight.

Even as she thought that, she knew she couldn't keep going forever. She was already slowing as she reached the pebbled beach, and eventually had to stop running, hands on her knees as she had to catch her breath.

Naturally, the Doctor was still running. That had always been something he had been good at. He slowed when he saw her stop, walking up to her slowly, and not as out of breath as she.

She refused to look at him, or acknowledge his presence right away. She stared at the pebbles by her shoes, trying to count them and calm herself as her breath slowed. Another pair of shoes crept into her field of view, old and worn from overuse.

"Opera?"

The question, in his voice, from immediately beside her, using her old name, sent her over the edge. She whipped around, hand extended, and slapped him hard across the face.

"Ow!" His hand flew to his cheek, and he stepped back, indignant. "What was that for?!"

"You. You had no right to... to barge in here like you did," she fought to get out, shaking with fury. "Did you know? Were you trying to make me remember, when I clearly didn't want to?"

He rubbed his face ruefully, clearly thinking before choosing his words. "No, I didn't know. I hoped, because it seemed like you, and the watch, but... Opera, I thought you were dead."

"I wish I had died," she told him bitterly. At the shocked look on his face, she quickly snapped at him. "If you'd known what I had been through, you'd wish it too. The Daleks kept me alive. For information. Do you have any idea what that means?"

It took him a moment before he answered quietly. "Yes. I do." He no longer seemed so quick to judge her remarks.

"So why did you make me open the watch?" With her initial anger dying down at his acceptance of her, tears were starting to burn in her eyes. "All of it, Doctor. I can remember all of it. The war, the planet - our planet - and how it was..." She found she couldn't even get the words out.

"I'm stupid. Stupid and selfish. Always have been, but you knew that," he told her, his apology plain in his voice. "If there was even the slightest chance that you... I had to try, Opera."

The sadness, the plea in his voice, made her stony demeanor break. She couldn't keep saying no to him. Anyone else maybe, but not him. She clamped her eyes shut, but the tears spilled out anyway, and she found herself leaning forward, looking for somewhere to hide. She had expected to catch her own face in her hands, but instead her face was buried in a tweed jacket that smelled slightly of burnt out electronics, mixed with cookies and sweets. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of shirt material as the Doctor wrapped her protectively in a hug.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her, and she felt him resting his face against her hair.

"It's not your fault," she whispered back, comforted by how caring he was being. "In your situation... I mean... I can't honestly say I wouldn't have done it too." She wiped her face, lifting up to look at him. "So. I'm here now. Properly here, with all of my memories and two hearts and everything. There's no changing that. We may as well make the most of it?"

"What do you mean?" The Doctor was staring at her in confusion, both at her quick forgiveness of him, and at her statements after that. "Make the most of it how?"

"Catch up on lost time," she told him, taking his hand as she moved to sit on the pebbled beach. "Any company is better than no company, right? Especially for people like us."

"We're hardly people," he said with a slight smirk, as he sat by her. "Two aliens mucking about on another planet, basically homeless. There's not people like you and me."

"Which is exactly why we need to stick together now," she reasoned. "If I'm going to remember all the bad stuff, I need to be able to remember the good stuff too. You were always good at helping me with that," she admitted, a bit sheepishly. Dammit. His charm was just as infectious as ever.

To her surprise, he seemed embarrassed as well. She even could have sworn he had blushed a tiny bit. "It's a learned skill," he muttered to her. "What should we talk about?"

"Anything. Everything. Tell me where you've been. After you left home, I hardly heard from you. I want to hear what you've been up to."

He smiled a little, glancing sideways at her. "Yeah. I can do that."