A/N: Well, this is something I had been planning to do for a while. A series of oneshots set right after each episode of series ten, in which the Doctor finds himself telling the stories of his new adventures to a certain unfamiliar face. I can't tell where this is going, since I'm relying entirely on s10's story line, but I do hope to bring justice to twelve and all that he has lost. For now, this will be mainly centralized on the Doctor, but it will have mentions of Bill, Nardole and the one he can't remember. I don't have any betas, so I apologize for any casual grammar and orthographic slips. I hope you'll enjoy this :)

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.

PS: This chapter is set sometime between the Doctor demanding Bill to leave his office before he changed his mind and him coming back to welcome her aboard the TARDIS.

"I loved you until you became words and stories, poetry and dreams; immortal in every book and every sunrise." – David Jones.

The grey-haired man walked into the small diner set on the fourth moon of Twilah.

He spotted a barista with the corner of his eyes. She seemed lovely, friendly to say the least, and he couldn't help himself but to study her face lines; a pair of brown eyes – eyes so big that could swallow entire galaxies –, a jawline sharper than a knife, eyebrows in a very defined arch, along with a pointy nose, all fit in a peculiar round face. He didn't mind the view.

The young woman grew a warmth smile the moment she saw the customer. "Hi, can I help you?"

The Doctor offered her a single nod, heading towards the bar. He seemed to take a very long time choosing which seat he should take, even though he was the only person in the diner. The barista just stared at him curiously.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked, standing right in front of him, in the opposite side of the balcony. She didn't bother herself to hide away the happy expression she had on. She almost seemed too happy.

"I forgot my wallet," he lied. He wasn't sure what had led him there, he had just followed his guts. Or had it been his hearts, he didn't know. Couldn't.

The girl followed to serve him anyway. "You're not a local, are you."

Slowly, he took a sip. It oddly tasted much alike common British tea. "What gave me away?"

"Your eyes," she exclaimed, staring right at them. If he didn't know better, he would have guessed she was hypnotized by them. "They're the eyes of someone who has seen the wonders of the universe."

The Doctor chuckled, "Funnily enough, I've been told that not so long ago. That I smell like someone who's been places."

Amusedly, she nodded. "You do smell like it, yeah."

He shot his shoulders up and down. "Takes one to know one."

She buffed, agreeing. "I used to travel a lot. With a friend. Now I try to travel as often as I can, but it's just not the same."

It was the Doctor's turn to stare at her big and sad eyes, even if she tried to diverge them away. "What happened to your friend?"

"Fate," she smiled sadly, but was quick enough to change the attention back to him, "Is she nice?"

He rose one of his eyebrows, at loss. "Who's nice?"

"The girl who told about your smell," she grinned.

He let out a long breath, one he didn't know he was holding. "Yes. I'm her tutor, at the universe I work."

The barista placed some cookies in front of him. "You're a professor? Fancy."

"Just for now," he shook his head, "I don't like being settled down, but I figured it was time to take a break. At least until I got some perspective back. I need time… time to remember," he sounded almost like a plead.

The lady rested her jawline against the palm of her hand. "Did you lose someone?"

The Doctor ironically laughed, "I lose people all the time. People come and go, that comes with what I do. The problem isn't losing someone – well, it is, but they always live on inside of you, the problem is losing someone and not being able to remember them. How they talked, or how they smiled, or even how they smelled. That's what kills you the most."

"I'm sorry," her voice was distant, almost inaudible, but it was there anyway, "I hope you remember them, though."

"Yeah, me too," he mumbled, taking a bite from the cookie in his hand.

The barista straightened up. "Tell me about this student of yours. A story for the cookies."

"Fair enough," he grinned, trading looks from the girl to the cookie and vice-versa, "She's an eager student. Always on time, very curious – too curious. Asks the questions everybody is always afraid to ask. Asks why I teach poetry when I'm supposed to be teaching physics."

She interrupted him instantaneously. "Why do you teach poetry when you're supposed to teach physics?"

"Because they're the same. They both dance with you, they both rely on the rhymes. If you can't feel the poetry in the physics, or see the physics in the poetry, then you're just doing it wrong," he explained.

"Alright…" she cleared her throat, leaving her uncertainty behind.

Shrugging, he carried on, "I like that on her. The other day, she told me about this puddle, a puddle that changes the reflection of somebody's face, even if it remains the same."

Her eyes enlarged, "That is a first."

"It is," he agreed, "So I had to go check it for myself. There was something wrong about my face. And then I realized, our reflection only seemed wrong because it was right. It wasn't inverted like every time we look at ourselves in the mirror."

The girl was getting more amazed by the minute. "How can a puddle do that?"

"Because it wasn't a puddle, and it wasn't our reflection either," he had a smirk on his face, almost too proud of his story, "It wasn't just water, it was something mimicking us," he was sure to add the suspense to his voice, "Of course, I told Bill, my student, to go home. She did, which was a first – they're always too stubborn to follow my advice – but she came back."

She cracked a laugh, "It seems to me she was stubborn enough only to follow your advice for only a couple of hours."

"It wasn't her fault, not really," he argued, "She was being chased by water itself, or whatever was behind the water, coming back to me saved her life."

Her eyes were glowing with intrigue, "Was she really being stalked by water?"

He hummed, "Actually, the water was mimicking a girl, her crush. Only problem was that the crush wanted to kill her. So I did what any sane person would do, I shoved her to inside my box."

Her eyes frowned, "You never mentioned a box."

"I didn't? Well, I've got this box that's actually a spaceship in disguise. The most secure spaceship, and it can travel to anywhere, anytime. People don't usually believe me, however. She herself mistook it for a kitchen, can you believe that? A bloody kitchen," he sounded too offended at such insinuation.

The girl grew a laugh simply, silently waiting for more.

"Bill then asked me if there was a toilet, surely the second weirdest question anyone's ever asked after first boarding my ship."

"Which one was the first?" she couldn't help but ask.

His face suddenly shut off, "I think… I think I remember someone once asking if there was a kitchen. You see, a toilet is reasonable, people have necessities. But a kitchen? Puff."

"They could have been hungry…?" she suggested.

"She wanted to bake a soufflé. All of time and space standing right in front of her and she wants to bake the soufflé herself. She could only be one of a kind, I'll give her that."

She smiled sadly, "Is she the one you can't remember?"

"I think so, yeah," his face went numb for a while. "Anyway, we were suddenly being attacked by an extraterrestrial force, so we traveled through space. Still within the university. A lift, as she would call it. It followed us. So, I took us the opposite side of the planet, Australia. Unluckily enough, we then found out that same force could travel through space as well. We were left with one alternative only: move through time. I took us to the end of the universe, where the skies are made of lemon drops."

Her face glowed at his last words, "Are they really?"

The Doctor laughed at her innocence, "No, but how pretty would it be."

She wasn't able to hold back a laugh, "So, did it? Follow you through time as well?"

He sighed. "Yes, leaving me with one alternative's alternative: take us to the most dangerous place in the universe, the one place we knew it could be destroyed. We landed at Dalek ground."

Her face was frightened with shock. "I've seen Daleks before, not the most welcoming creatures."

He buffed, nodding, "If you've seen a Dalek and survived to tell the story, then you're a brave girl," he said and she blushed.

"Like I told you, I used to travel," she bit her lower lip, "And then what? Did your plan work?"

"Not really," he made a face, "It mimicked a Dalek for a while, but then it went back to mimicking the girl Bill fancied. I went from running to having a one-way conversation with her, but it wasn't me who figured it all out. Bill did."

She waited.

"Right before the water killed the girl, she had promised Bill she wouldn't leave without her. It was romantic, to say the least. The final imprint on her conscience had been taken by the water, that's why she kept following us. Following Bill. It was only when Bill let her go of her promise that the alien force left her."

"That's depressing," she concluded, "She just didn't want to be alone."

"Yes, but taking somebody down with you isn't the way to do it," he debated, taking one last sip of his drink.

She slowly nodded her head. "I bet Bill was thrilled with all that she had seen."

"Can you blame her?" the Doctor pondered. "But she couldn't be. I wasn't ready for her to be. I still haven't found my answers, I haven't found her. She can't be when I'm not. So, I had to do it, I had to wipe away her memories."

The bartender's face saddened. "You don't seem like the kind of person who would do that."

He sighed, "I didn't. I couldn't."

"Why?"

"Because she reminded me of how it feels like not remembering something, someone. Someone you clearly cared for, someone who was essential to you. Someone for whom you had a duty of care."

She could have sworn she saw the glimpse of a tear in the corner of his eyes, but it went away too quickly for her to be sure. "That's noble of you."

He chuckled, ironically. "I told her to go. I'm not ready to start traveling again, especially with somebody new, a companion that is not her. I know it might be selfish of me, but I can't. I just can't."

"Why can't you?" she hissed, but her voice was stuck in her throat, "The woman you lost is gone, you don't own her anything."

"I made a promise, I can't just break it!" he almost yelled, but still loud enough.

"Of course you can, you just don't want to," she spoke softly, unlike him, "And I think you're more than ready to."

He stared right into her eyes, almost intimidating her, almost pleading her, "What should I do, then?"

"Go back to her," her tone had gotten a little more pitched, "Go back for her while there's still time. Just think to yourself, what the heck, and go with it. You need it, and so does she."

Reluctantly, he seemed to agree. "But what about her?"

Her face's serenity didn't change. "It's a big universe. Maybe one day you will find her."

His sad eyes met hers, and they didn't say anything else. Everything that needed to be said being spoken in the silence. He got up, and walked in a slow pace to the front door. He could feel her stare on him, but daren't to look back, not until he reached the entrance, "Your name, you never told me it."

Her lips formed half a smile, "You never told me yours."

He cracked a laugh, one that she made sure to join, before closing the door behind him and walking back to his TARDIS.

A/N: So, should I carry on with this? Any feedback is much appreciated ^-^