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“Now I’m in here, I don’t mind.” Dodo said. “I know I’m safe.”
Something shifted in Steven’s brain. It took him a moment to understand why those words triggered a heavy feeling of grief, of guilt.
“You show me so many strange mysteries. With you I know I'm safe.”
Katarina. Barely more than a child and dragged into a world she couldn’t possibly understand. He remembered pleading for her life – Bret Vyon making a caluclation Steven couldn’t, wouldn’t make. He understood. Bret was a soldier. Sacrifices were made in war.
But Steven wasn’t a soldier. That type of sacrifice could never be palatable to him. Katarina was no soldier. Her life was hers to sacrifice, no one else’s. She made her decision, sparing him from having to make it.
Bret wouldn’t save Katarina. Steven couldn’t. He still closed his eyes to see her lifeless body floating away.
(Sara’s screams never left him, her body crumbling to dust--)
The Doctor wouldn’t save Anne. Steven couldn’t. He still hadn’t forgiven either of them.
But if she had lived after all—if Dodo was really—
Dodo’s face, so young, so damn young, framed by dark hair so like Anne’s, like Katarina’s—How could he risk her life?
He saw Katarina, struggling with the brute in the airlock—
Anne, begging his protection—
Sara, turning the horrific weapon on herself—
“I know I’m safe”
Bret wouldn’t, the Doctor wouldn’t—
Steven could.
“Doctor, let me go out and make that move for you.”
“At least that way you and Dodo—" Katarina, Sara, Anne “—would get away.”