When the Sun Sets ☼ Eleven x Reader

XXVII - The Doctor Hates Endings

'Okay, I know that face. Calm down, talk to me.' you say as the Doctor screws his face up in anguish. He begins to throw himself around the entrance of the room, now dramatically throwing himself at the chair he had previously used for support. 'Doctor!'

'No! Get your wrist out. You get your wrist out without breaking it!' he instructs.

'How?'

'I don't know. Just do it! Change the future.'

The Doctor storms out of the room without turning back to you. You wondered what it was that he had read in the book that had fired him up to such an extent that he snapped like that. Through all of the emotional heartache you knew he had gone through, and even the little bits you'd seen when he was with you, you had never known him react like that to anything. The Doctor was the reclusive sort who expressed his darker emotions in secret- leaving the happy and enegetic emotions on the surface. You had said when you first started travelling with the Doctor that there was more to him that met the eye. This was the first time you had really seen another side of him, and it was intriguing- however troubling.

Next on your agenda- removing your arm from the grasp of a statue without breaking it. This was proving harder than you anticipated.

[-]

'So, is this what's going to happen?' Amy says despairingly, perched on the steps of Mr Grayle's grand entrance. 'We just keep chasing him and they keep pulling him further back?'

'Rory wasn't sent back in time by the Angel babies in the basement.' you say, entering the room. You did your best to ignore the dull throbbing in your wrist. 'I'm reading a displacement, but there are no temporal markers. He's been moved in space, not time, and it's not that far from here by the look of it.'

'You got out.' the Doctor states in disbelief, with a hint of a proud grin escaping his lips.

'So, where is he?' Amy asks.

'I'm just looking. Give me chance.'

'How did you get your wrist out without breaking it?'

'You asked, I did. Problem?'

'You just changed the future.'

'Well you see, Doctor, I'm just that good. Now hush, I'm working. '

'She's good.' he says, joining Amy on the step. 'Have you noticed? Really, really good.'

'Ah, wherever it is, it's within a few blocks.' you read, identifying the signs on the vortex manipulator. 'Let's go.'

'Show me!' the Doctor enthuses, standing from the stairs and running past you and towards the door. He instinctively pulls you along with him, and you elicit a strained gasp as he tugs on your wrist. He stops, and you follow his eyes as they reach your face, register the pain in your eyes and then slowly move down to the trail of blood falling from under your sleeve. Watching the cogs whir in his head, he suddenly steps forward, and places an arm around your shoulder to guide you to the step. Sensing a small twinge of anger in his expression, you don't fight it. He doesn't look back at you when he takes the vortex manipulator from your hands and passes it to Amy. He explains the intricacies of it, and leaves her in the doorway to find Rory.

'Why did you lie to me?' the Doctor says, rejoining you on the step.

'Because I was worried about you. You should've seen your face when you read whatever you did in that stupid book. You told me to change the future, so I did the best I could. Only the best I could was break my wrist. I wish I could've done it another way, but you were so stressed and I-'

'It must hurt.' he says, gently cradling your wrist in his open palm, and seemingly ignoring everything you had said. 'Come here.'

'Yeah, and the wrist is a bit sore too.' you reply.

Encasing your wrist in his palms, you feel a warm glow envelop it. Looking down, small spirals of gold were intertwining themselves, and you could almost feel the bridge between the two sides of your snapped wrist being rebuilt as he spoke.

'Do you not remember what I said to you? The first day I met you I told you that I would protect you above all else. Now I appreciate you trying to do as I asked, and I'm sorry you had to do that, but don't lie to me about things that I can fix.'

'What did you do?'

'Shaved about five or six regenerations from my life expectancy. How's the wrist now?'

'You have got to be kidding me.'

'Does it hurt when I lift it?'

The Doctor continued to dodge your criticisms.

'I could've coped without. That was the most ridiculous waste I've ever seen.'

'You don't have to simply cope, when you can live.' the Doctor replies. 'See, that's better isn't it?'

He pulls your wrist up to kiss the back of your hand tenderly, but you pull it away quickly and slap him with it.

'I can't believe you would be so completely stupid!' you remark. 'Don't you understand how serious this is? You've just lost some of your life for the sake of my wrist. Nothing is gained by you being a sentimental idiot.' You stand to leave.

'[Y/N], please.'

You feel him start to stand with you, but you storm down the entrance hall and out of the building before he has a chance to stop you.

'Okay, why did you lie?' Amy asks, joining you outside in the cold New York air.

'Because you can never let him see the damage.' you reply. 'The Doctor hates endings. Those glasses won't be helping that- he doesn't like to see you ageing.'

'How do you know so much about this?'

'What, the Doctor? We talk, you know.'

'I don't know why you don't just get on with it and tell each other how you feel. You've seen the way he looks at you. And you know the way you look at him. Start that life you had with the Dream Lord. For god's sake, take a leap of faith.'

You thought about what she had said for a second. 'Everything that starts has to end. And the Doctor hates endings.'

There was a bittersweet irony in your statement. The Doctor's hatred of endings was surface level, and easy to distinguish. You saw the same look in his eyes when he thought Amy and Rory were going to settle in Leadworth after the wedding. However much damage you wanted to protect the Doctor from, there were some things even you couldn't hide- and you knew one incline you had was going to require a lot of damage control.

There was an end coming. And you feared it may be your own.