[Realm of the Muse 1.74.3] Response
Things do not get better by being left alone. Unless they are adjusted, they explode with a shattering detonation.
-- Winston Churchill
He pushed her door open once more, chiding himself for his continued need to assure himself that she was sleeping soundly. Any tenuous hold he'd previously had on a sense that things were as they should be had been discomfited, once more, by the irrevocable saboteur: his own mind. The Doctor had never been gifted a quiet mind, and were it ever to be such, he would likely have been stripped of mental faculties altogether.
Simply, he worried incessantly, but always in silence. The burdens he bore were his alone, and he had incurred this one through his own machinations, and more than deserved it, really.
Ace was sleeping on her side, and he resisted the urge to move closer, just to be certain she was breathing properly. He had made her lose her faith in him, but he had done it to protect her. Ever the pendulum of burdensome decisions to be made swung agonizingly slow across the valleys of his mind. He had to kill her spirit to save her life, and were the situation to ever arise again, he would immediately choose the same route. He wanted her alive more than he wanted her with him, though it would ache as much as the toppling of ancient oaks uplifting from the Earth to die rare deaths in the pitying sun. It would ache as fiercely as the mourning of seashells which lose the one creature they were born to shelter.
But he would do it.
Because he loved her enough to keep her alive, even if she could never forgive him.
A slight, sleep-smothered whimper drew the Doctor's attention, and he finally had a reasonable excuse to slip into Ace's room. She shifted a bit under the blankets, her eyes held tightly closed as something troubling played across her mind.
Gingerly, he sat on the bed beside her, immediately pressing two fingers to her temple to quiet her mind and ease her just an edge deeper into slumber. Once she had relaxed, he allowed himself to stroke capriciously at her forehead, brushing at her hair.
He would not apologize.
"My best girl," he whispered, smiling fondly down at her.
Somehow, that extra qualification to an endearment he'd previously used for her was a cathartic epiphany, and he found his hand grew reluctant to part from the gentle rhythm through her hair and across her skin.
There was something more that needed to be said, to ease the pressure in his chest minutely.
"I'd do anything for you," was his subsequent vow.
He had always known it, but now it was tinged with myriad emotions, and rather than fill him with a sense of dread, it felt oddly liberating.
Brushing a chaste kiss to her head, the Doctor stood and left the room.
-- Winston Churchill
He pushed her door open once more, chiding himself for his continued need to assure himself that she was sleeping soundly. Any tenuous hold he'd previously had on a sense that things were as they should be had been discomfited, once more, by the irrevocable saboteur: his own mind. The Doctor had never been gifted a quiet mind, and were it ever to be such, he would likely have been stripped of mental faculties altogether.
Simply, he worried incessantly, but always in silence. The burdens he bore were his alone, and he had incurred this one through his own machinations, and more than deserved it, really.
Ace was sleeping on her side, and he resisted the urge to move closer, just to be certain she was breathing properly. He had made her lose her faith in him, but he had done it to protect her. Ever the pendulum of burdensome decisions to be made swung agonizingly slow across the valleys of his mind. He had to kill her spirit to save her life, and were the situation to ever arise again, he would immediately choose the same route. He wanted her alive more than he wanted her with him, though it would ache as much as the toppling of ancient oaks uplifting from the Earth to die rare deaths in the pitying sun. It would ache as fiercely as the mourning of seashells which lose the one creature they were born to shelter.
But he would do it.
Because he loved her enough to keep her alive, even if she could never forgive him.
A slight, sleep-smothered whimper drew the Doctor's attention, and he finally had a reasonable excuse to slip into Ace's room. She shifted a bit under the blankets, her eyes held tightly closed as something troubling played across her mind.
Gingerly, he sat on the bed beside her, immediately pressing two fingers to her temple to quiet her mind and ease her just an edge deeper into slumber. Once she had relaxed, he allowed himself to stroke capriciously at her forehead, brushing at her hair.
He would not apologize.
"My best girl," he whispered, smiling fondly down at her.
Somehow, that extra qualification to an endearment he'd previously used for her was a cathartic epiphany, and he found his hand grew reluctant to part from the gentle rhythm through her hair and across her skin.
There was something more that needed to be said, to ease the pressure in his chest minutely.
"I'd do anything for you," was his subsequent vow.
He had always known it, but now it was tinged with myriad emotions, and rather than fill him with a sense of dread, it felt oddly liberating.
Brushing a chaste kiss to her head, the Doctor stood and left the room.