A mad man with a box. That is what they all call him, what he calls himself. But to me, he is the Doctor. My Doctor. My thief. And I am his TARDIS, from the first moment he looked upon me and took me away, traveling among the stars, into the vast, dark tunnel of space and time. Nobody can truly understand the Doctor, not even myself, but after more than 700 years with him, I believe I come the closest. I have been there since the very beginning, standing by his side when life was "fantastic, absolutely fantastic", was one step behind him whenever he shouted "allons-y", snapping his fingers to open my door and strutting inside, ready to take another journey. I was there, screaming "Geronimo" alongside him, before every dangerous adventure, listening to his constant yammering and insistence that bowties were, in fact, cool.

I saw his pain, his guilt, that ate him alive every second of every day. To his companions he was crazy, a man who was amused and fascinated by every species and event in time. A man who could talk about the importance of everything and nothing for hours before realizing that no one understood a word he said. A man who was kind, so very kind. Kind enough to jump into the pits of hell if it meant saving a life. But to me, he was a tortured soul. A soul who had nothing to lose since all in his life was already lost. The last of the Time Lords, that's what he was. And who did he blame? Himself. My Doctor distracts himself, his mind, with the lives of others. His companions. He masks his true self, his true emotions. He covers them up with witty sayings and fast, unintelligible ramblings. He covers them up with crazy. Because every time he lost himself, every time he gave into the grief, the anger, the guilt, every time is companions saw his true self slipping through the cracks, he wouldn't have to explain. He wouldn't have to talk about the things that bothered him, the things he didn't want to talk about. His only excuse would be that he is crazy, and crazy people do crazy things. His companions never realize how truly special they are, what they truly do to him. They believe they are just keeping the Doctor from loneliness, and in a way, they are right. But they do more than that. They are saving him. Saving him from himself, from his own thoughts and memories trapped inside of him. The memories he keeps under a dead bolt lock whose keys he threw into the darkest parts of his mind as a way of never remembering what had been. The dark memories that can swallow him whole, tear him apart from the inside so completely until he has no compassion anymore. Being a lord of space and time can do a number on a person or, technically, an alien. For without his companions, who would truly stop my Time Lord from playing God, from being God? Who would stop him from becoming another Master? As much as I love my thief, I do fear this as his fate. But what can I really do? I am just a blue box.

A blue box with a mind of my own, though. I get my thief where he needs to go, not where he wants to go. He may not realize this, but my thief is a man with unimaginable potential. He may think that he was the one who took me away, but it was really me who took him away, and continue to take him away. Worlds around him fall apart, universes crumble, and civilizations end without knowing my Doctor. It breaks my heart. But I take him away, take him to those places, so others have the chance to see, scratch that, a chance to be saved, by my Time Lord. A chance to be saved just like he had saved me all those years ago. Saved me from loneliness of my own, a broken heart of my own. Saved me from sitting there in a museum filled with the broken rubble of the dead planet I used to live in, we used to live in. Saved me from wasting away alongside them.

But companions come and go, some choose to leave while they are still alive, while others leave him without ever getting to make that choice. One thing that will never change, though, is me and him, him and me. The Doctor and his TARDIS, together for eternity, traveling through time and space, having adventures and seeing different worlds and what they have to offer.