He turned slowly in a circle, looking upward with an expression very near innocent wonder. "She's beautiful."
An unwilling smile. "I know."
His gaze came down, his eyes caught and held the Doctor's attention. They were surprisingly lucid, visibly deep brown instead of the dilated black they had been for so long. His charmed smile faded into somber focus.
"You have been very alone."
It was too much, too close to his own thoughts. The Doctor looked away, walked to the controls for something to do. "I've had others." His voice echoed in the vast emptiness around him. He had never before noticed the silence, the dark shadowy size of the ship.
The laugh put him on his guard, but it cut off before mania set in. "Yes. Your companions."
He didn't turn, couldn't move, just stood over the controls of his ship with his hand clenched into a fist as he gripped one of them at random.
"It hasn't been enough." The words came just against the back of his neck. He shut his eyes.
"Sometimes it was."
"Was it?" Fingers almost touched his hair; he felt the movement of air as a hand brushed very close to him and shivered. "For how long?"
He sighed in defeat. "Not long enough."
"You need someone."
"Yes." The weight of the years, the memories, the actions bore down on him like the echoing, silent space all around them. "Yes."
There was a very long pause. He could hear their breathing in the quiet, could feel the heat radiating off the hand still hovering just over his neck.
"Did you miss me?"
The question was not what he expected and it startled a laugh from him along with the truth. "Yes."
The physical contact of fingers along his collar was almost painfully gratifying. He exhaled in a sigh that was nearly a sob.
"We have too much history, you and I." The touch slid along his neck, fingers coming up into the bottom edge of his hairline for a moment. "Enemies forever." The fingers tapped out a rhythm into his skin - da-da-da-dah, da-da-da-dah. He choked a laugh through a throat tight against the swelling tears.
A hand on his shoulder, a breath against his cheek, lips brushing against his ear. "I'll always be tied to you." He could feel the smile curve against his skin. "And really passion is passion, regardless of the cause, isn't it?"
"Will you stay?" He hadn't meant to ask, hadn't meant to speak at all, but the words came out as a plea with no decision on his part.
There was an edge of mania in this laugh; even that was as comfortingly familiar as the tingle of physical contact. He sighed in relief, knowing the answer before he heard it.
"I'll always be with you, Doctor. Where else would I go?"