It began with a whisper.
He told himself it was just the pain of losing another companion, coming home once again to an empty TARDIS. Of course, he'd go bounding off into space, find some bright eyed new friend to help him try to forget the last. But never once, in nine hundred years, did he ever think to truly forget his companions; it may have broken his hearts to remember them, but to pretend like their friendships had never happened, well, there were few bigger disgraces he could think of.
It came again, the whisper, not from any direction in particular. He spun - much in the same way it took to pilot the ragged blue box he was standing in - knowing he would find nothing. No one could work their way in without his knowledge.
He leaned against the console, closing his eyes and thinking. Surely there had to be a rational explination. Things never happened for no reason.
That's when the mist appeared in his vision, clouding the black. Even for him, this was odd, to say the least. Slowly as the clouds swirled past his eyes, they took the form of a woman. Not just any woman, though, one he recognized.
"Hello, Doctor. Can you hear me?"
He stifled a noise of surprise. "But… how?" He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug her. She'd always be there, but there never was a proper way that he could show his affection for her.
Idris smiled. "I don't have long," she said. "There was one more thing I didn't get to say to you."
He waited; after seven hundred years of dealing with his shenanigans, she had the right to get a few words in and, in all honesty, he wanted to hear her talk again. He'd spent so many years listening to himself ramble on, it was nice to hear another voice in his head, especially when that voice was her's.
What she said was quiet, but he'd never forget her words, the words of his oldest and most cherished companion. "I love you, Doctor." Her smiled turned sad and before he could respond, she had vanished.
He awoke in a jumble of wires, a loud noise coming from the console above him; they were crashing. Whether it had been a dream or not, he couldn't have cared less; all he knew was that maybe his TARDIS wasn't so empty after all.