Prologue

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"When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end.

But however hard you try you can't run forever.

Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor.

But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment,

Accepts it."

River Song, Forest of the Dead

I recognized this place, no place was the wrong word for it, because in actuality I had no idea where I was. No, what I did recognize was this planet. It should have been a comfort, to be surrounded by the noisy human crowds in the narrow streets, to glance around and see the architecture so embellished with human traits that it couldn't possibly have belonged on any other planet I had stepped foot on, to walk sluggishly on the Earth, my home, but somehow it wasn't a comfort. My own mood, made no sense whatsoever to me, I had been dying, all but dead, by some miracle to wake up gazing at the blue skies of my own planet, I should be ecstatic. Most people would be leaping for joy, abounding in the fact that they had escaped death. I run my hand down my arm, eyes studying the cream skin that in some places was caked in dirt. Dirt that did not belong on this world, the thought brought a smile to my lips. As I had been a foreigner on its planet, now it would be a foreigner on mine. Two of my fingers settled on my wrist, moving inch by inch until they found it, my pulse the sign that I was still alive. The gentle but incessant drum under my fingers came as a relief, if my heart was still working I must be alive, despite the impossibility of it all. Ah, but he had always thrived on the impossible. My beating heart was his work, because he couldn't bear to let me go, even when I assured him I was ready, he wouldn't accept it. I was alive, because he was incapable of letting go. The spite that bubbled up in me at the thought, surprised me. Its not like I had been on some mad rush to a glorious death, but I also didn't appreciate that my life hung on the thread of his whims. After all it meant this was my life now, I knew him to well, he never let a good song play out twice, he wouldn't come back for me in the fear that something would go wrong again, something that he couldn't stop. He'd just keep on running and eventually I'd become nothing more than a dusty tome in that big old library of his to be pulled out and reflected on when the rain came. I twist my head slightly to the left, feeling the stare of several passer-by's. What a sight I must make. Half of my mousy brown hair in a loose bun, while the rest of it had managed to escape falling around my head in various places, dirty with the dried green alien blood that stuck to it. My denim shorts were torn up at the bottom, basically beyond repair and like the rest of my legs splattered with a fine layer of mud. My yellow singlet, wasn't even yellow anymore, just a mix of dirt and the same alien blood that clung to my hair. I looked like I belonged tramping through the wild, not navigating through the middle of a bustling city. A city that in my intense confusion I had yet been able to discover its name. The street signs were mostly French, despite the fact that the language that filled my ears was English, spoken by most in an American accent. It was the accent that convinced me that by some miracle the TARDIS translation circuit wasn't still working away. So I was in an American city, that judging by the beautiful and very distinct architecture, I should probably be familiar with. However my knowledge of American cities was sketchy at best, America had never quite made it to the list of places that I wanted to see. Besides after travelling with the Doctor for so long, countries and cities became far less important. Generally every time I landed in a new place my main concern was on what planet I was on and whether or not the inhabitants wanted to kill me.

"Excuse me," I say, surprised for some reason that my voice still had the ability to function. The strangled words I had managed to produce were directed to a woman mere feet from me, looking down as if absorbed in her own thought. Something bit at me, a small inside voice telling me I shouldn't have distracted her. Maybe I shouldn't have but her blue eyes have a kindness about them, a kindness that seems to hide a sadness. Now I know why I had chosen her of all people to distract, kindness and sadness going hand to hand together, one look through a crowd and I had managed to find the person that reminds me the most of the Doctor. Her eyes look up to meet my grey ones and I realize that I was wrong. She is sad that much is obvious, I catch it in the subtle way he shoulders sag just a little bit, but more from the fact that when she thought nobody was looking her face seemed to ooze it. But she'll never be as sad as he was, I would never be able to look into anybody's eyes and see the same amount of sadness and loneliness that came from centuries of life. She has carefully eyed me up and down assessing me and with that assessment comes the concern.

"Are you alright?" the words are friendly and that instantly brings a smile to my lips. She notices it and her forehead creases as if she is trying to work out exactly why her words have caused such a reaction.

"I just wanted to know where I am," I tell her, trying to infuse some of the friendly charm I had learned from the Doctor into the words. Confusion crossed her eyes at my request and I wait patiently for an inquiry into exactly how I don't know where I am but none is forthcoming.

"In New Orleans," she replies, watching me with a deep concern. I nod my head slowly absorbing the information. I had no immediate feelings towards where I had landed, Earth was unfortunately Earth, no matter where I ended up. I open my mouth to thank her and walk on, when it hits me that I haven't asked the most important of questions.

"What's the year?" I question, it certainly seemed like my time but travel enough in time and space and you soon realize never to trust your surroundings.

"Its 2013, are you sure you're alright?" she stresses the word alright as if for some reason I have not quite understood its meaning. Maybe I didn't, at least not in relevance to her, to me alright was not dead.

"I'm fine, just you know its been a wild one," the words and the lie slip easily from my tongue. The stranger considers my words, her shoulder length blonde hair being blown by the wind and I feel goosebumps form at my skin's reaction to the cold.

"Look, I'm just heading to work at a bar just a little down the road, why don't you come? I'll get you a drink, maybe find you something to change into, get some food into you," she offers, giving me a reassuring smile. It takes a considerable effort not just to agree immediately, after all that was all the Doctor and I would do find someone to offer hospitality and introduce us to whatever the hell was going on in their world. But that was the Doctor life and wasn't this supposed to be the start of my new life? "We serve the city's best gumbo," the woman says, catching my hesitation to reply.

I meet her eyes before returning the smile, "Well, who could say no to that," I reply, realizing that I was all by myself and genuine help was what I needed.

A hour or so later and I find myself sitting curled up in the corner of a warm bar, stomach full, dressed in some stranger's floral dress and left alone with my thoughts. Not alone on purpose mind you, but the night was a busy one with a constant stream of people flooding in and out, each with their own story and a human life to return to when they left. Yet every single one of them was different and amazing in their own way. That was the one lesson I would never forget from travelling with the Doctor, normal people were so far from ordinary, every one of them was astounding. Some bad. Some good. All unique.

The warm golden lighting that surrounded me, the drifts of herbs and spices that float through the air, and the humdrum of life that came from every angle in this place was the gentle reminder that I had refused to acknowledge ever since I had got back. Earth was a magical as every other planet that I had been to, and been confined here, forced into a normal life didn't have to be a punishment. Because as so many others had taught me, a normal life was never really that normal at all. Excitement stalked at every corner provided you knew where to look.