"Stop squirming, Missy." He navigated the corridors that lead to her room, her cell as she remembered it more than anything from the days he kept her there, from the days she had refused to leave. "You're heavy, and I don't want to drop you."

She snorted, and shook her head, "Oh, aren't you a charmer." All the same she looped her arms more securely around his neck when he readjusted his hold and pressed her face into the sleeve of his coat trusting him not to do the very thing she had just threatened.

He settled her against her pillows, quickly moving to pull her covers over her.

"Hang on, I can't just go to bed like this. I'd be terribly wrinkled come morning" She protested sitting up despite his staying hand. She swung her legs over, bending down to untie her shoes. He couldn't miss the way she swayed from the effort of sitting upright alone, or how gingerly she moved.

"Let me."

She let her eyes drift shut, tipping her head as he began to unpin her hair freeing each dark coil one by one from where she had so carefully pinned them.

Once the last glossy ringlet fell he turned his attention to her blazer, he deftly popped each button as she watched him curiously, head cocked to one side. The doctor gently pushed the jacket off of her shoulders, draping it over the back of the chair next to her bed

He carefully removed the broach. The Doctor was stalling, she knew, but she was curious as to how far he would go with it. "Careful with the edges they're a mite… sharp."

He handled it gingerly, "Dark star alloy, cuts through nearly everything." He hadn't even recognized it at first. She had changed it, added the cameo and the fastening.

"Cuts through armor like a knife through skin. Do you remember giving that to me? It was when my daughter… our-"

"Hush. Of course I remember." He paused before moving his hands carefully back to the high neck of her shirt.

"It was the day they found her."

His hands stilled against her collar bone, "I remember." His breath stuttered against the top of her head.

She needed him to feel her pain, to truly remember what she had carried with her every day, the all consumptive ache of it, "Won't you say her name, Doctor?"

There was a flame of anger in his voice in his sharp reply, "Will it bring her back? Will remembering bring her back?" They lapsed back into silence, which was fine because there was a cruel lump of something dark and bitter at the back of her throat. She wanted to reach out and strangle him, beg for him to bring their daughter back, to blame him.

"I think I can handle this myself." She caught his hands as they fumbled with the third button of her starched shirt, carefully dragging them away. She hadn't missed how he held his breath, or the fine tremors that rippled through his withered hands.

"Love, please" She shifted so he had to look her in the eye instead of so determinedly staring at his shoes. "I'm… I'm old fashioned." She forced her mouth to curl into a smile. "And a lady, after all."

"Missy…" She stood, steadying herself with her hands splayed against his chest. She stretched up and pressed a kiss to the corner of his downturned mouth despite that he cringed away from the contact.

"Off you go, tea, one sugar and cream will do."