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Bill had always seen it in movies, of course: the way people’s bodies doubled over as they absorbed the shock of the bullets. But the sight of it in real life, the fact that the man who was collapsing was the Doctor, the realisation that she had done this…it made her feel sick.
She knew what would happen next. There would be a strange glowing light coming from the Doctor, (what was that, anyway?) and then he would announce that it had all been an elaborate ruse.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, the Doctor’s body crumpled to the ground and a red pool seeped out from beneath his body. Bill stood frozen for a moment and stared at him in shock. Then she sprang into action, tossing the gun aside and sliding to her knees beside the Doctor. His body was unmoving, his eyes blankly staring upward.
“Doctor.” Only when her voice cracked did she notice that tears were already tracking down her face.
Bill touched his cheek and used her other hand to quiet a rising sob.
What had she done?
Bill gasped as she woke up. Her fingers ached, and she realised that she had been tightly gripping her blanket. She took in a deep gulp of air and sighed, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of her room. Feeling her shirt sticking to the sweat on her back, Bill pushed her blanket off and sat up. She rubbed a hand over her face and recalled the morbid dream all too well.
The problem was that it wasn’t the first one she had experienced since the Monks had left. And rather than the nightmares being about the Monks or the violent things she had seen done to people for six months, all of them had been about the Doctor. All of them had replayed the moment where the bullets had plunged into his chest, though this one seemed to be the worst. The Doctor had never actually died in her dreams before…
Bill shook her head to dispel the image. The nightmare was over now. Still, the slightly sick feeling remained.
She reached to her bedside table and grabbed her phone, pressing a button on the side to light up the screen. The time read 2:37 AM in large type. Bill sighed again and lay back down in her bed. She navigated to her messaging app and found her most recent conversation with the Doctor (which consisted of him asking her how the essay was coming along) and began typing.
Are you okay?
She backspaced the entire message.
Hey.
Nope.
I need to tell you something…
Bill closed her messaging app altogether with a sigh of aggravation. The Doctor probably wouldn’t answer if she texted anyway; the only text of hers he had ever answered had to do with a question from a previous essay, and even then she had sent him several messages before getting a reply.
Was it stupid that she just wanted to know that he was fine? Probably. But she knew she wouldn’t get any sleep until she had heard from him. However much she tried to shake it off, the nightmare was too real.
So, instead, she called him.
The Doctor picked up on the third ring, and without even saying hello, he said, “Bill. Shouldn’t you be asleep or partying or something?”
Before she could respond, she heard the murmur of another voice in the background, followed by the Doctor shushing it.
“Yeah, I was asleep, but I had a sort of nightmare.”
“And?”
“And… I dunno. I just wanted to know you were okay, I guess.”
This time, Bill could faintly hear the other voice say, “Aww, now isn’t that sweet?” Though she couldn’t be certain, she thought it was the woman the Doctor kept in the vault.
“Well I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Go back to sleep and get the outrageous amount of rest you humans need. I’ll see you tomorrow at six. Laters.” He hung up the phone before Bill could say another word, but she smiled nonetheless. “Laters” was their thing; after weeks of saying it to him as she left her lessons, the Doctor had finally let it slip in reply, and now they hardly ever parted without saying it.
Bill placed her phone back on the table and settled her head back onto her pillow. I’ll see him tomorrow, she thought to herself. The thought was supposed to be comforting, but instead it brought a feeling of dread.
She knew she couldn’t keep this guilt in any longer. She wasn’t even sure if she should apologise; it had been at his prodding that she had done it, anyways. But it had still been her choice.
Free will, she thought, reminding herself about the essay. She was almost done, but the concluding paragraph was eluding her.
Bill rubbed her forehead. Now her mind was rambling. She closed her eyes and let out one more deep sigh. A twinge of nervousness settled itself in her gut.
For the first time, Bill was scared for her lesson with the Doctor.
Bill almost paused outside of the Doctor’s office. She wanted a chance to collect her thoughts, but she had been thinking all day about what she was going to say to him, and thinking about it any more would get her even more confused.
So she strode right into the office, aware of a series of short scratching sounds. As she looked to her right, the noise turned out to be the Doctor sketching on a blackboard. Several circles with detailed markings covered the surface of the board and the Doctor was adding more at the bottom right corner, drawing so fast that it seemed to be like a second language. Bill found herself so fascinated by the sight that she stood rooted to the spot and just watched him for a few moments.
“Is that your language?” she wondered out loud.
The Doctor paused and glanced at her over his shoulder. He finished up the circle he was working on and then set the chalk on the ledge at the bottom of the board. “It’s the written language of the Gallifreyans, yes.” He wiped his hands against each other, creating clouds of white dust around him as he walked towards his desk.
“Thought you were a time lord.”
The Doctor dropped into his desk chair and spun in a full circle. “It’s my rank, not my species.”
Bill took her seat across from him. “You just tell people ‘time lord’ because it sounds more impressive, don’t you?”
“I am a time lord,” he countered with a frown.
“Okay,” Bill said, giving up the argument, though she smiled to show him that she still believed he was a pompous old Gallifreyan.
“You couldn’t sleep last night.”
Bill’s mood immediately plunged. She had almost forgotten about what she had to do while she was here. Yet, as she remembered her conversation on the phone with the Doctor last night, she couldn’t help but retort with,
“Neither could you and your friend in the vault, apparently.”
“We were talking,” he said fiercely, with a gaze that she was sure was meant to put to rest any other theories she might have had. “We’re time lords. We don’t need sleep.” He looked down and his expression softened a little. “I went to see her because she gets lonely.”
Bill had to scoff at that. “I can imagine that being locked up in a vault might get a bit lonely, yeah.”
His gaze was burning when he glanced up at her. “You don’t know her,” he said, a hard edge to his voice. “You don’t know what she’s done. This has been good for her.”
“Then tell me.” Bill crossed her arms over her chest and leaned on the edge of the Doctor’s desk. “Who is she?”
The Doctor sighed, his expression growing weary as the tense lines on his face relaxed. “It’s a long story for another time.” He leaned forward, copying her stance. “Now, I’m guessing what you wanted to tell me has to do with your nightmare last night.”
As she looked into his eyes, she remembered seeing them lifeless and cold in her dream, never to hold expression again. Bill shivered and nodded. “Yeah.”
The Doctor stared at her with a searching gaze, and after a moment Bill had to look away.
“You don’t have to be afraid of the Monks.” His voice was level and comforting, stating once again, though he didn’t have to say it, that he would keep her safe. “The human race gave them so much trouble, I doubt they’ll come here ever again.”
Bill folded her hands on the desk and looked down at them. She chose her words carefully. “I’m not scared of the Monks.” She took a deep breath, still unable to look him in the eye. “I’m scared of myself, of what I did. Of what I can do.” She forced herself to look up at him and saw his eyebrows rise and his eyes grow wider. She wondered if it was the first time he had thought about the effect it would have on her. For a moment, he seemed to be speechless.
“I didn’t know I was capable…”
Her hands gripping the gun so tightly that it hurt. The roar of the gunshots ringing in her ears. The sight of the Doctor’s mouth opening in shock. His body rippling with the force of the bullets.
Tears stung at her eyes. She swallowed to try to keep her voice level. “I didn’t know I was capable of killing another person.”
The Doctor looked down at the desk. “Bill—” he stated in a quiet voice.
“And not just a person,” she continued, “but you.” Despite her efforts, her voice cracked on the last word.
The Doctor’s jaw tensed and he sighed through his nose. “It’s not your fault.” He glanced up at her then promptly looked back down. “I made you do it.”
Bill swallowed and her voice resorted to a normal tone. “You didn’t make me do anything. You may have manipulated me—by the way, totally not okay, and if you ever do that again I’m gonna slap you so hard you’ll end up on Mars—but the choice was mine. I decided to pull the trigger.”
“But you didn’t kill me.” He spread out his arms. “I’m fine.”
“That’s not the point.” Bill stood, unable to sit still any longer as powerful emotions flooded through her. Grief. Guilt. Doubt. She clenched her fists at her sides, and after a second she replayed her words in her mind and sighed, shaking her head.
“I meant that I’m glad you’re alive, Doctor.” She tried to laugh but it halfway turned into a sob. “More than glad. But it just keeps playing in my head over and over, like some stupid song you keep singing but you can’t get rid of. I just keep wondering how I did it. Why I did it.” She looked down at him, pressing her lips together to keep the tears in. “How did I kill my best friend?”
The Doctor promptly jumped to his feet and faced her. “I knew it was what you were going to do. It was what you were supposed to do.” He raised his eyebrows and his tone softened from its normal gruff rumble. “It was a test, and you passed.”
“But how could you know I would do that?” Bill started gesticulating with her hands, talking faster as her emotions heightened. “Even I didn’t know I’d do it.”
The Doctor took a step forward. “Because I’ve spent hundreds of years getting firsthand experience of the nature of humankind. I’ve known people like you,” he said, pointing to her. “People who are kind, intelligent, understanding; they wouldn’t kill anyone.” His eyebrows set over his eyes and his expression grew darker. “But you watched people suffer. You watched people being dragged from their homes and sent away from their families. You watched people get beaten and murdered. You watched as the world descended into chaos, and on top of that, you felt like it was your fault.”
Bill inhaled a deep breath. Every sentence struck a chord.
“I was your last hope,” the Doctor continued. “And when that hope was exhausted, the last thing you had been hanging onto for six months, you reacted like a good human being would. You reacted to protect other people. You knew you were going to die when the Monks got there anyway. You were trying to give the world a chance.”
How did he know? How could he read her mind better than she could? She shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Doctor. No matter what you think, it was still wrong. And I’m sorry.” She wanted to hug him, to feel the comfort that he really was still here, that it was all over. So Bill stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling him slightly stagger backwards in surprise. “God, am I sorry,” she said quietly.
And now it was her turn to be surprised, because the Doctor actually returned the hug, gently wrapping her in his arms. “Don’t tell Nardole about this,” he muttered, “or he’ll never stop asking me for hugs.”
The mental image forced a chuckle from Bill. She drew away from him and the Doctor’s arms dropped to his sides. “I won’t.” She wiped her sleeve over her eyes. “Your secret’s safe.”
He smiled a little, which made Bill smile in return. She lightly punched his arm. “Are we all right, then?”
The Doctor frowned at the point of contact. “We’ve all done things that we regret, Bill.” He locked gazes with her and Bill felt as if she could almost feel all the guilt he harbored. “But we can’t keep punishing ourselves. Life goes on.” One corner of his lips turned up in a small half-smile. “There are better things to do than dwell on the past.”
She looked down, letting the words sink in. She wished that she could be that inspiring when talking to people.
“And if it helps…”
She looked up to see his brow furrowed, as if he were concentrating really hard. His eyes were trained on the floor.
“I’m…sorry.” His gaze flicked up to meet hers for only a second. His mouth opened as if to say more, but then he just pressed his lips together and looked into her eyes. Bill thought she could read what he wanted to say but couldn’t quite bring himself to. That he had never thought about what shooting him would do to her. That he hadn’t taken her feelings into consideration.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part. Just saying that he was sorry was already a stretch for him.
Finally the Doctor continued, saying, “And though there’s nothing to forgive…” His eyes were warm and soft. “I forgive you. And I still trust you.”
Tears pricked at Bill’s eyes again. Though he seemed to always remain aloof to her emotions and brush them off, there were those beautiful, rare moments when he knew exactly what to say.
“In fact,” the Doctor said, dashing towards the TARDIS, “I trust you so much that I’m making the final deadline for your paper tomorrow!”
And with that statement, the Doctor completely killed the mood. “What?” Bill demanded, following him into the TARDIS console room.
The Doctor grinned at her. “And we’re taking a field trip after you turn it in.”
Once again, he knew exactly what to say. A thrill of excitement ran through Bill. “Field trip? Where?”
“NASA.” He pointed out the door and raised his eyebrows. “Paper. Now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Bill rolled her eyes at him, having to bite back a sarcastic, Okay, dad. She wondered how he’d react to that.
Instead she began walking out of the TARDIS, hearing the Doctor typing away on the console’s keyboard. She looked back over her shoulder. “Thanks, Doctor.”
“Let me know if you keep having nightmares,” he said absentmindedly.
“Yeah. Laters!” she called as she walked out the door.
“Laters.”
Bill walked out into his office and closed the TARDIS door behind her, smiling.
Yes, the Doctor was a stupid idiot most of the time. And yes, he still kept secrets and aggravated Bill to no end. Yet, Bill had no doubt that he was the best friend she had ever had.