I saw him, there in the distance.
One swish of that trenchcoat, one turn of that chin, and I recognized that skinny body and those red Converse and that spiky hair and I started running. Running like a child would run to his father, like a sinner running to salvation and he was God Himself, waiting for me.
I stopped dead in my tracks only when we were nose-to-nose, and I put my hands on his shoulders and took a good long look at him. I couldn't quite grasp that he was standing right in front of me, and I was touching him, existing in his presence. It never seemed real to me, seeing him when I did, precious points in time that were always centuries apart but the only memories that never faded. I knew it wasn't a dream, but I also wasn't sure. As it were, I dreamed of him every night, of seeing him again, but my joy was continuously crushed upon waking.
I stared at him until I was sure he was real, while he looked back at me with those old, old eyes, and then I took him in my arms.
I held him tightly, as though he would suddenly turn to sand and fall through my fingers. I was scared he would shake me off and run away like he always does.
But instead, he slowly lifted his arms and put them around me, one hand on my back and the other on the back of my head, and pulled me in to him.
I felt myself begin to shake, and convulse gently, like I was sobbing, but I couldn't hear myself crying. All I could hear was the sound of his steady breathing.
I gripped him tighter. I felt the beating of his hearts, the leftover broken pieces of his previous nine lives, and the weariness of his old age in his thin frame, all 900 years of him somehow crammed into one skinny young body.
He looked confident, but I knew that inside, he was barely holding himself together. He had seen so much and lost so many that somewhere in the middle he'd lost sight of himself.
He was all I had left.
The only man I never outlived.
The only man who'd seen more than me.
How could it be that this lonely, broken-hearted traveler who could barely hold himself together was the only one holding me together?
The only man I'd ever loved.
There I was, holding him to me, praying to time itself to keep him there with me.
And then, even though I knew it would just make him run away again, I said in a shaky voice,
"I love you, Doctor."
I breathed in sharply, surprised I'd said it. It sounded so strange to hear myself say it, something I'd never said to anyone, not since I'd been mortal. I could barely even remember being mortal anymore. Throughout all those hundreds of years, he was all I'd loved, all I'd even thought of loving.
When he replied, I wondered how I ever thought he would say anything different.
"I know."