"You are not alone."
Martha's suggestion had been a perfectly reasonable one. If Rose had tried to explain it away in that way, he would probably have pretended to accept it, just to keep her happy.
But he would still have dreamed. He would still have allowed that seed of impossible hope that he had nurtured through two incarnations to put down a few delicate, tentative roots.
It was too good to be true; he couldn't believe it. He shouldn't believe it.
But the Doctor had fantasised about being wrong.
His bright, beautiful Susan had grown up so quickly, while he wasn't looking. His parents never existed, his children never existed, but he still exists. Maybe she had existed, sheltered from the effects of the War, and made a life with David. Maybe she now lives somewhere more tangible than in the memories of an old man and two unborn/young/old/dead humans, preserved only by the way all three spent their lives out of step with their own time.
"You'll love this place, Martha. Mid twenty-fourth century, the Earth's had a couple of centuries to recover, no wars for the last fifty years. Great advances in technology, and the pollution levels-" The Doctor trails off and stops dead.
"Doctor? Doctor, what is it?"
An elderly woman walks past and the Doctor reaches out to her.
"Susan? Surely it's Susan?"
He came back for her.
Romanadvoratrelundar grew into Romana and the universe wasn't big enough for the two of them. He wishes she'd kept running and not gone back to Gallifrey; wishes that she had survived. He imagines all the ways she could have survived; imagines her trapped in some primitive era on some primitive planet, nursing the coral and counting the centuries, or a perpetual wanderer amongst the stars, believing herself to be the last.
He tracks a time signal to Scotland, Earth, 1746. There's been enough interference there. He lands a little bit off, tracks the signal across miles of moorland to Torchwood House and literally bumps into her in the doorway.
She slaps him.
"I'll give you 'lonely god'!"
Loyal, noble Leela. Never one to run from a fight, never one to abandon what she saw as her duty. After Andred's death, she refused to leave Romana's side; refused to leave her 'undefended'. They never managed to convince her it wasn't her fault; that if she had stayed he would have lived. She never showed when she was hurt and never showed fear. But the Daleks couldn't be defeated with her beloved janus thorns. Maybe Romana saved her life; sent her away against her will.
"I've found someone you should meet," Sarah says.
Leela looks horribly out of place in Sarah's house, dressed haphazardly in twenty-first fashions. The buttons on her blouse are done up wrongly.
She says nothing. She doesn't need to ask after the Time Lords or their President. She doesn't need him to tell her that they lost.
She simply gazes at him, just a little girl lost. She's always been strong, but it's left to him to break the silence.
Ace; real name Dorothy but Ace suited her much better. She was ace. She was the ace hidden up his sleeve. He watched her grow from the vulnerable child hidden behind a front to a confident young woman; he saw her outgrow him.
Ace left Time's Champion and became Time's Vigilante; one more companion caught up in the destruction.
But they both saw that tapestry; that motorbike could have taken her to Paris. It could have taken her anywhere, it could have taken her somewhere safe.
"You should be more careful," he scolds her gently, letting the dermal regenerator do its work.
She looks slightly uncomfortable but he tries to attribute that to the slight itching of the new skin, tries to pretend that she knows him again.
"You don't live very long if you're not careful."
"You don't live very long anyway," he replies and means it. The human body is so fragile and can so easily betray the strength of the soul inside.
The gash on her leg heals completely, leaving only slightly pink skin to show where it had been.
"There you go, good as new," the Doctor beams, slipping the dermal regenerator back into his dimensionally transcendental pockets.
She pulls her trouser leg down and bounds to her feet.
"Thanks for that!"
"No problem," the Doctor smiles. "If you ever need to find a man who carries a dermal regenerator around again, look me up."
Ace laughs. "I might take you up on that sometime."
He waves as she walks off into the jungle. A few minutes later he hears the sound of a motorbike.
"I'm here to see Mr Saxon," the Doctor announces.
A/N: An extended version of this can be found on my journal (linked in profile) or on the Teaspoon as 'dreams of fairytales and fantasies' by agapi42