Her laughter fills the air in a buoyant way that makes even the TARDIS hum in content.
me? i'll always be a dreamer
He grins as he remembers; his little dreamer. She always was. Her head was stuck in the clouds long before he took her to visit them.
i know and that's what i love about you
The words slip out, and it's too late to take them back.
Surprisingly, he doesn't want to.
And then she is all he can process. She usually is, but him being a superior Time Lord and all, he likes to boast that he can think of multiple things at once. But she's always up there in the most important thoughts.
how long are you going to stay with me?
And suddenly he's in a white room with white walls, the total opposite of how his hearts feel at the moment-they feel black as coal and withering at the same pace that he's falling apart.
And he leans a cheek against the wall, presses a hand to the horrid thing separating him from his precious dreamer.
And then the walls are turning black and dripping, and he can see her, and this doesn't make any sense-
come to take me back, Doctor?
He hears her haunting voice and he feels her banging against the wall, and he knows suddenly that he's regenerated and he has green eyes and a bowtie. And how long has she waited there, for him? How long has she held on, waiting for him to bring her back?
forever.
It's the answer to both his questions-the one about her staying and the one about her waiting. And it's always the answer that comes back to haunt him, in the end. It's always her voice, promising things that she has no control over but oh how he wants-
And then he's gasping awake.
Actually, he realizes to himself, she did keep her promise.
Because she's staying with him forever. His dreamer, giving him forever in his dreams.
But it's not quite the forever they imagined when she said it.
