So many faces.
He has had so many.
Usually, they spring from nowhere, but this time, it's different.
He recognizes this face, but too many years have passed.
Age is catching up to him. Every day, he feels older. He was so young once. His appearance had tried to disguise the fact that he is an old man, weary and followed by a trail of death and losses.
But he has dropped that veil. No longer does he seem outwardly young. Clara will be mistaken for his daughter, not his girlfriend.
In some ways, he will miss that. He cared for her, cares for her still, but she won't anymore. He was unsure before whether she really had feelings for him, but now it is impossible. She is young, with her life ahead of her. She has that soldier fellow with the funny name. She can forget him, the old man with the sarcastic tone and biting accent.
And yet the mystery remained. His face had to come from somewhere.
Somewhere, in time and space. That was a very broad spectrum, of course. His adventures had spanned the universe.
But now he was back to where he had started, in that junkyard on Totters' Lane. A grumpy man traveling with two young teachers who were so obviously in love.
Conflicting emotions had been filling his mind since he had regenerated.
Should he let Clara go? He didn't want to. She had been with him for so long and through so much, more than he had ever comprehended.
If she wanted to, she could. There was no stopping her.
He would remain here, alone, to ponder the mysteries the Universe held. How could he forget something so important as where his face had come from?
So much had happened.
So much had changed.
So much was going to change.
And he would let it happen.
He had to.
His bargains with the Universe were spent. He had found his impossible girl, alive once more, and had lived, had been granted more life.
More life.
Welcome, surely, but he was uneasy.
Loneliness was no way to spend lives that were not supposed to have happened.
Clara was still there.
He was grateful.
He would seize the moment and be happy while he could be.
For who knows what the Universe had in store for him?