"Is this seat taken?" The tall young man plops down (there really is no other word for the way he bounces a little in the cushion as he sits) next to her.

"You again." She doesn't know why she's angry to see him. "What do you want?"

"I told you once." he says as he pops her untouched olive into his mouth.

"No you didn't." she replies.

"Didn't I?" He chews the olive thoughtfully and pokes around his teeth for a bit with the toothpick. "Oh, that's right; I was GOING to tell you." He makes a face. "All this quantum heebyjeebywhatsit's confusing even for me."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" He drops the toothpick down onto the table. "All right then. What am I REALLY thinking?"

"You're trying to butter me up so that I'll...reveal myself to you."

He squints his eyes and makes another face. "Not quite the way I'd have put it, but I suppose it'll do." He smiles briefly, then it fades. "I want to stop you." She laughs harshly. "Did I say something funny?" he asks.

"No." she says as she struggles to end the laugh. "It's been a while since someone said that to me."

"I can tell." His tone is pleasant if melancholy, but for a moment she thinks he can. When he speaks again, she knows he can. "I've been following you for a long time." He leans in unconsciously. "I've seen the things you've seen. I've seen the things you've done. And I am here to tell you: you're making a big mistake."

"A mistake?" She laughs again, and this time it hurts. "My misTAKE was smothering my father." A couple people look over. "It didn't solve anything."

"And neither will this." He puts his hand over her right one. "The mistake you made wasn't killing your father. It's doing it again."

Long ago she said she would never cry. Now here she is, crying on New Year's Eve with a man she hardly knows, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. There's a woman singing on the radio. "I'm alone again, alone again." she says. "I'm out around on my own again, cause my mocking bird has flown again. And I'm alone again."

"It isn't fair." she says with tears dripping down her face.

"No." he agrees. "No it isn't. But he's not the man you knew. He's not either of them; he's...something else."

"Blood is blood." she tries to tell herself.

"Blood doesn't make you who you are. You do."

"At least THAT we can agree on." she says. "My blood is killing me."

"Ah, you never know." He lets go of her hand and leans back. "City at the bottom of the ocean? Like Mister Ryan said, that's a miracle. Might not be the only one." he adds.

He's trying to tell her something. She knows he is, but she can't figure out what. "What should I do?" she asks him.

"Best thing you can do." he advises her. "Keep an open mind. It's easier said than done, believe me-" He smiles and laughs, and it looks as though it hurts him too. "-I know." He's staring off into space, seeing things that even she hasn't dared to see.

"Why do you care?" she asks. It's a dumb question, but it's made slightly less dumb by the follow-up. "Why aren't you trying to erase me or something?" She stammers like she's that little girl in Columbia again.

"What makes you think I haven't tried?" he says in response. Then, seeing that she still doesn't understand, he attempts to explain. "Your...existence is a fixed point in time. The city you were raised in might not technically exist in this universe any more, but because YOU do, part of it still does."

To others, it might not make sense. To Elizabeth, it does. "A paradox." she muses. "You must have had more than your fair share of those."

"Who said it was fair?" the man jokes. She purses her lips, which only makes him smile more. "Yeah, I've-I've dabbled as it were..."

"Do they ever...go away?"

He shrugs and makes another face. "Sometimes. Sometimes the universe just heals up all around them. We'll have to wait and see with you."

They're silent. The music has changed. Rapture's second anthem, though no one but the two of them knows it.

"How long has it been?" Elizabeth asks him.

The Doctor lets out the air in his lungs with an explosive sigh of unsuredness. "Don't have the faintest idea." he says. It's his turn to purse his lips now. "Wait a minute." He remembers. "It was just after Donna. You still had your hair cut short." He makes a gesture with his hands, just below his ears.

"You still haven't brought her back." she says. She would have liked Donna...

"It might work, MIGHT work." he tells her firmly. "I don't think she'd forgive me." he admits a moment later.

"You'd know her better than I would." she says. "But if you ever need a brain to pick, you know where you can find mine." she jokes.

He grimaces. "Don't say that. Not here."

"Why not?" She tries to interpret the look on his face. "'Future stuff'?" she guesses.

Reluctantly he nods. "Not any more, but... I shouldn't have said that." he says. "It's realllllllly not pleasant."

"I guess I'll never know." she says, trying to be flippant.

He reads her like a book. "Don't even THINK about it." he warns her, suddenly serious again. "I'm not kidding. It'd drive you MAD."

Now it's her turn to read him. "You saw it, didn't you." His gaze is stony. "How long?"

"I came right here." He's angry, though not with her. "There are some places logic doesn't work like it does here." He's breathing faster, almost baring his teeth. "And that's all I'm going to say about it."

"All right." she says. She at least has regained her composure. "I suppose it was nice meeting you again." She starts to walk away, to find a quiet alley to disappear in.

He calls her name. "Elizabeth." She turns. He's on his feet, looking as old as he must feel sometimes. "Go to him." he says. "Learn about your dad. I think..." He looks away for some reason. "I think it's what he would have wanted."

She nods and heads off toward Market Street.

He'll come back and visit her later. Much later. He'll watch from the TARDIS as their journey unfolds and takes a different path, a better path. He will smile throughout it all, because he knows the way it should never have to be.

And thanks to him, thanks to the Doctor, it never will be again.