The Time of Change

Duty Calls

The Eleventh Doctor wanders around the complicated control panel of the TARDIS, pushing his floppy hair out his eyes. He thinks long and hard about how to word his explanation for Annalise. How is he to make her understand that she isn't human, that she never was? How can he ease her into the idea that she is as old as he is? A sigh escapes his lungs as he puts his face in his hands. This is so painful, he thinks, somewhat absently. His hearts beat in sync to agree. She doesn't remember any of it. She warned me she wouldn't, but I didn't know how badly it would hurt. She doesn't even know how much—

    A loud beeping breaks him out of his thoughts, and he jogs to the other side of the panel. The distress light is blinking rapidly. Someone is in danger and needs his help, but he doesn't know who. All he can do is lock on to where the signal is coming from and hope he can save them. His hand automatically reaches for the temporal flux, but he stops it.

    Annalise.

    He promised he wouldn't leave. He can't hurt her, not again. It was hard enough to leave the first time, but he knew he had had to. He cannot do it to her again. But the light goes from blinking to a solid, blood red, and he knows he has no choice. He can, however, tell her he's going. Perhaps she could even come with him! He runs from the TARDIS and into her house, dimly registering the fact that she left the door unlocked. I'll have to tell her to start locking it at night, he tells himself, skidding to a stop in the kitchen. He stares around, wondering which of the three doors leads to her bedroom. The eyes of the Tenth Doctor hanging on the wall seem to follow him, but he brushes away the feeling. Taking a wild guess, he strides quickly down the hall and opens the second door on the right. He sees the outline of a bed and knows he made the right decision. He hesitantly tiptoes over to her bedside and crouches next to it. Her even breathing confirms that she is sleeping.

    Now that his eyes are adjusting, he begins to see her face take form, glasses-less but still unequivocally lovely. Her eyelids twitch slightly in her sleep, those long lashes brushing against the high, elegant yet childishly-freckled cheekbones. Dark brown hair hangs slightly over her face, and as she breathes in and out, a strand tickles her small button-shaped nose, which scrunches in response. For a moment, he cannot bring himself to stir her, to forcibly remove her from a state of such peace. He shifts onto his knees and simply watches, transfixed.

It is absolutely terrifying to him just how strongly he feels for her. And he does feel strongly, no matter how much he knows it will hurt her in the long run. He has been attracted to women (and men) in the past; it is only natural, after all. But she has always been quite different. Beauty is only skin-deep for far too many, and even those whose beauty extends further seem to have a cut-off point before it reaches the most important part: the heart. Annalise, on the other hand, is rather unique in that aspect. That heart of hers is kind, pure, compassionate, brave, and protective. He has had plenty of time to watch her acts of selflessness, becoming an unknowing but willing martyr, never accepting any recognition or praise. The Doctor learned long ago that every living thing is infuriatingly, wonderfully different from one another. Humans have fascinated him from the very beginning because of how they cherish those differences. And while he recognizes that no two beings are exactly alike, they are similar in the way that it is first instinct for most species to put themselves above others. Survival of the fittest or something, as he read somewhere sometime in his previous lives. There are, however, an unhappy few who do not possess that trait. He has found, over his years, a handful of remarkable creatures who place the lives of everyone else at the top, and he has never exactly understood how something so beautifully pure could come to be out of the chaotic entropy that is existence. But they did. And above all, so did she. Somehow, someway, she managed to prove him wrong so many times and teach him so many things, and she managed to change his very being, and while he has never fully grasped why or how, she did and continues to do so. Annalise Song managed to exist at the same time as he did, and that in and of itself is the closest synonym he can think of to the word "miraculous."

The Doctor strokes her porcelain-doll-white face, tucking the villainous strand of her dark hair behind her ear. Her skin feels hot beneath his fingers, and he quickly removes his hand. There cannot be another episode like the one that happened earlier. He must be more careful with his touch in the future. It will be hard, he knows. It may even be impossible. The urge to hold her hand is too strong for him; to be as close as he can be without hurting her is the only thing he wants. Hurting her, though, is inevitable.

    Suddenly and quite unexpectedly, he understands that he cannot take her along to wherever he is to go. He must wait, even though his hearts will break and he will regret leaving the second that he does, for the right moment. This is not the right moment. She told him once that every action has a perfect time, and every time has a precise action. If the two don't coincide, then it is all for nothing. In his mind he knows she was right, that those were wise words by which he must live, but he still has to swallow a lump in his throat while he readjusts himself and stands.

Before he leaves, as an unplanned afterthought, he leans down so that their noses touch like the gentle, unsure caress of snowflakes on eyelashes. A beat passes in which he just stares, and he swears for a moment he is so close that he can see the molecules moving in her skin. In a swift movement he kisses her lightly on the lips, something he has been wanting to do since he saw her in the classroom today. It is swift in the beginning, but he prolongs it by a few seconds more than he probably should, and he wonders briefly if she can sense the emotions that threaten to overpower him while she sleeps.

    "I'm so sorry, Annalise," he whispers in her ear. "Don't lose hope in me."

    He turns and walks out without looking back, quietly shutting her door behind him. His chest aches, but his feet trudge onward. He stops to gaze at the portrait of himself one last time before he goes. It really is impressive, he thinks appreciatively. I never knew she was so artistic. Then again, she never had the chance to show me. His past self's eyes seem to shine in agreement. The Eleventh Doctor slowly makes his way back outside, pulling out his sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket right next to the door. He turns and flips the switch. It pulses in its usual blue glow, making its whirring sound that he has grown so fond of, and he hears a soft click that tells him her back door is now locked. He goes back to the TARDIS and starts it up, already regretting what he's about to do.

    The blue police box gradually fades into thin air, and the Doctor is gone.