dear_mun | debating reserving at exsilium idk idk.

Miss Evie! [Guess he'll just pull both of them into that hug, now.] There you are! Yes! This is Susan! [squeeeezey hug!]

[OH GOD, GROUP HUG. Evie, hopefully you are completely okay with that, because it's kind of a thing at these family reunions.]

It's wonderful to meet you! Really! How long have you been traveling with him?

[And then, to the Doctor - oh-so-suspiciously:]

You haven't gone off and gotten yourself engaged again, have you?

[She loves a good hug, let alone one from such lovely people, so she throws her arms around the pair.] He speaks so fondly of you, the pleasure is all mine!

You know, I'm not... entirely sure. Some time, now. Er, how exactly does that translate into time travel? Oh, I don't even know.

[Oof. Being huddled in with two other bodies really makes the embarrassed color of her face pronounced! Still, she laughs (perhaps titters, is more accurate) because it is rather funny, his situation.] O-oh, but not us! No, it's not... we're not... [She's just going to stop, because she's just making it worse! She looks to the Doctor, pleading for a little help, here.]

Edited 2012-10-05 22:55 (UTC)

[While he's practically beaming at the two of them getting along swimmingly, Susan's question makes him sputter and turn red all the way up to his ears. Congratulations, Susan. You've rendered your Grandfather speechless.]

NO! Well yes, but no! I mean River knows! I mean-...!

Playboy here's gotten himself married twice now. And Evie Reed isn't one of the two. Though they do get along fairly well.

Well, at least River and Evie do. He still hasn't returned Marilyn's calls.

And technically, I saw Evie first.

[Now he's just doing it to himself on purpose...!]

Edited 2012-10-05 23:07 (UTC)

OI! You shut up! You know very well I had no idea Marilyn was proposing! And that chapel was not a legitimate institution!

River is...complicated. Very complicated. She knows about Evelyn and is fine with it. Us. The thing. They're like sisters! If one of the sisters flirted with the other and they sha-TECHNICALLY YOU SAW RIVER FIRST, TOO!!!

And Cameca was a lovely woman. [:C]

Edited 2012-10-05 23:18 (UTC)

[Okay but all the embarrassment is doing nothing to convince her otherwise. She's standing there, arms crossed. If this was complicated back with the Aztecs, then... wow, what has he done now?]

River? Marilyn? Who are they?

You know, I would like to meet my grandmother one day.

[Oh, that went well. Very smooth, Doctor.]

[Hey, give him a break, he's trying! There are just some things you don't discuss with your Granddaughter...! And he's a lot more able-bodied then he was back with the Aztecs, so this actually has things you do not discuss with your Granddaughter...8|]

Maybe you will! Meet River at least. I know she's been roaming around here in these worlds, with more them one Mun. Marilyn is...[and he almost looks smug] Marilyn Monroe...I'm sure you encountered her somewhen befo-...

[He can't stop the look that washes over him when she mentions her Grandmother, and for a moment, he just freezes. And it's surprising, how all the years suddenly begin to show on his face as he works his jaw, visibly trying to fight back the tears in his eyes.]

I'm sorry, Susan...that's...that's impossible, now. I'm...I [Having Susan back after what he did, able to talk to her and hold her again in this world as if it hadn't happened, is more then he'd ever hoped for. He has no faith that anynof the rest of their family had survived, in any time or place.

And now, after all the times he's wished he could ask for forgiveness, and all the things he'd thought he would say, now that it's finally come up, he finds he can't say it aloud.]

Terrible things have happened since I left you behind...we can't ever go back.

You're what?

[There's still a lilt to her voice as she says that, the laughter having not quite faded yet, but it only takes a look at him before any mirth is gone. This, she doesn't quite understand.]

Go back? Back to whe -

[And it hits her. It hits her so heavily that she can almost hear it. She still doesn't understand, still doesn't know what, but something's happened to that home she described so lovingly and dreamed of so often and continuously tried to make up for, and -]

What's happened, Grandfather? What terrible things? Tell me.

[The mood certainly shifts quickly. For her, the nervous energy doesn't cease, it simply transforms; her anxiety of meeting family becomes a pang in her heart, and tension in her expression. Evie's grasp on his history is tenuous, but she has an idea where this is going. The look on Susan's face, expectant, worried, is hard to watch - so instead, she looks at her feet.

It's something sad, but something of this weight should be a private affair, so, she opts to remain in the background, quiet, but with a comforting hand placed on the Doctor's arm.]

Edited (Fussing with word arrangement, sooooorrry) 2012-10-06 04:46 (UTC)

[Her initial difficulties realizing the gravity of his words only makes the pain worse, and he looks away as all signs of joviality melts from his face. He looks, feels so old, despite his outward youth, and his entire body aches with it. As if simply speaking the truth of it is an agony for him.

But she deserves to know. What right does he have to her ignorant happiness? After the things he had done, he deserved whatever judgment she would pass on him.]

There was a war. The last great Time War, betweem Skaro and Gallifrey, across all of time. It lasted centuries. Millenia. I fought on the front lines with the rest of our race. During my eighth life, in my nineth century, I discovered Rassilon's plan to end the war, and...

[His voice cracks and he pulls away from them gently, as if he feels repulsed at the idea that they should be touching him, this man who had done so many horrors. When he speaks up again, his voice is weak, fragile and broken. He can hardly breath.]

He would have wiped out all of reality just to win the war. I...I couldn't let it happen, so...so I...I made it all burn. Skaro, Gallifrey. Even Arcadia. They're nothing but rubble and dust!

[And he almost seems to curl up in on himself, his arms pressed against his chest as he hides his face in his hands and weeps quietly. He can't let them hear. He doesn't deserve their sympathy.]

Everyone died. Everyone! Even me! And them I regenerated and everyone else was gone and I did it, I destroyed them, every single one of them!

I'm so sorry, Susan! I know I can never atone for what I've done, I deserve all of the hate you could have for me!

[And yet some small part of him that still prays for her forgiveness makes him look up now with with pleading eyes, and he reaches out without touching, wanting to hold and cling but undeserving in his hearts of reassurance.]

I promise, I promise, now matter how much hate you feel for me, it could never be as much as I hate myself. I've lived the last three-hundred years knowing what I'd done and that I was the last, and it was all my fault! I'm so sorry!

You -

[She tries to interrupt him at first, tries to stop him from what's eating at him and tearing him apart, but the reality of it dawns on her. He'd meant it literally. They can never go back. There's nothing for them to go back to. Unsure, she takes a step away from him. She looks at Evie - she doesn't know why; she's just met the woman, of course there's nothing she can do - and then back to her grandfather. In a last ditch-effort, she forces a smile and shakes her head.]

No - you couldn't have - it's some sort of -

[Some sort of what? A joke? A joke - the way he's crying and cracking? As much mischief as he seems to be up to, Susan knows he wouldn't. He would never. And that seals it. There's a finality, a reality that her home is gone. There are no more orange skies and silver trees. There's nothing left of the one place she did belong - the place she always wanted to replicate.

She can only stare.]

[So many words; words she doesn't understand, that have no gravity to her, and words she can't ever hope to give them to compensate for their loss. It's the guilt in his voice, and the sudden age on his face, as he draws away from them that forms a knot in her throat. Some time has passed since she started this journey with the Doctor, and on it she's seen many things; wonderful, brilliant, and terrible things. None of which she'll soon forget, and yet...

It's the way that Susan looks at her that undoes her. They meet eyes and instantly, Evie regrets looking. Her own sting with tears and she wrings her hands, feeling every part the guilty child - like she knows a secret she shouldn't. In this case, she sort've does.

Evie opens her mouth to say something to her, but she knows that I'm sorry won't exactly cut it. She's just Evelyn, and she's never suffered as greatly as he, and as Susan is about to. I'm sorry is meaningless, practically an insult, when someone has just lost the entirety of their home. Her helplessness has hardly ever been more pronounced, torn between what she feels is proper, and what her heart tells her is the thing to do she stands frozen, watching the distance grow between them.

What should she do? She just wants to return both of them to the group hug they'd been having what seems like forever ago, now.]

[The moment she steps back he mirrors the action instinctively, pulling his arms back in tight against his chest. No, your Grandfather could never joke about this, never. It's been his cross to bear for too long, become a part of his very soul.

He squeezes his eyes shut once more, his head dropping in resignation as he sobs, hiding his face back in his hands. He can't face that look on her face, the horrified stare, and the rejection he expects.

He'd always wished for forgiveness, but that didn't mean he expected it.]

I'd always hoped you were happy, before the war. I never saw you again to ask. [And he's so sure that now, at least in his reality and not in this shared dimension where they can find each other again, she's gone with the rest of them. He'll never know for sure.]

You never came back.

[She's not rejecting. Not yet. Because despite the betrayal and that broken promise and what he's done, he's still her grandfather. That same old man with the broken blue box. The same old man that indulged her, that stayed on Earth for months only for her. The one who left her when it was what she truly wanted - what she thought she did.

But she can't forgive him. Not yet. Not when she's staring at him not so much in horror, but in shock, in confusion even though she didn't know what she expected. Did he forget? Did he find others? The casual way he spoke of Evie - of River, whoever she was - there had to have been so many others. But he hadn't forgotten, surely. He couldn't have.]

You told me you'd come back. You promised!

[The caution Evie has, and there's a lot to be had in a delicate situation like this, is thrown to the wind when the Doctor recoils. The look of honest pain and guilt twisting his features, before he's hidden behind his hands, and the wounded bewilderment of his granddaughter, makes her fidget.

She honestly tries to remain out of it, but she can't, not when his shoulders slump and quiver-- he's crying. She doesn't presume know the whole story, or even half of it, but she can't let him think that he's beyond comfort. If she couldn't find a way to come to Susan's side, she would do what she could. So she goes, and delicately places one soothing hand on his back, then the other on his arm, drawing close.

This time, she's the one looking to Susan, sympathetic and flustered. Surely, he hadn't forgotten her, or worse, abandoned her-- his own granddaughter; he would explain this, given time, she knew it.]

Edited 2012-10-08 21:26 (UTC)

[He shook his head behind his hands, drawing in ragged breaths. He flinched away from the touch, seming to try and draw away again before instinctively leaning in closer, shoulders hunched and tense.]

I couldn't, I wanted to, but I couldn't. At first I wanted you to have a chance at your own life, but then the choice was taken from me, the Time Lords banished me and kept me confined to one time and place on Earth, and by the time the exile was lifted, things were too dangerous! [His voice is small despite the emotion in his tone, but he manages to look back up at her through the tears.] I only wanted you to be safe and happy, Susan, I'm sorry! I knew you would get hurt or killed if I came back!

And then in the end it didn't matter because I did it myself...[And now there's horror in his voice and in his eyes, and it's hard to breath, and the shaking in his shoulders has nothing to do with his crying.] I'm a monster with a baby's face and I can't ever take it back!

debating reserving at exsilium idk idk.

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PFFFFFT!!! XDDDDD

Re: PFFFFFT!!! XDDDDD

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Alright. I sobbed.

BASICALLY. GOOD JOB GUYS. also sorry this is late wow.

Muahaha! No worries!

That's ok, I'm the Queen of late, the Doctor is so ashamed of his Mun...:|