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It's been a good life, she reckons. With frail hands she scrambles for the journal that's lying on the night side-cabinet, the leather well-worn and cracked. Some of the pictures have been blotted out by children's fingers, snotty noses, drinks. It doesn't matter. She knows it by heart.
She could have had that life. She pages through the journal. She didn't want it, still doesn't. John, her John, had died, and she thought she'd never love again. Until she met Donald. He was also a good man, more alive and real. Love is a harsh mistress, and doesn't like to be ignored. Then how come she hasn't caught the Doctor, Joan muses. Maybe Time is Love's master.
She'd married again, Donald, the man from Birmingham whom she'd almost nagged to death to tell her about his youth, his family, his city. She'd loved him, as best she could. Even if her thoughts drifted off to 1913, to the professor with the messy hair and goofy grin.
She sighs, and smoothes the blanket. The bed is too empty. Donald died a good few years ago, and she misses him. Closing the journal she puts it down on the covers. She has seen enough. It doesn't hurt to look at its pages, not anymore. But oh, when she closes her eyes she can see him, her John, smiling and asking her for a dance. She loved him, and then he died. He became a stranger, and she knew without looking that there was no trace of John left in him. He had thought otherwise, looking so hut when she denied his request. It would not have been right. Being so close to him, feeling John's ghost, the ghost of the life they would never have together swirling around them. Joan's eyes slip shut. She dreams.