How long are you going to be with me?
Forever.
Forever is a lie, forever is a promise that no one keeps and no one knows this better than the Doctor.
After all how many people had promised him forever and how many times had those people left him? So after a while he stopped believing in forever, but then he meant Rose and for some reason he believed her when she said forever.
He believed that she would never leave him, that she would stay young and healthy with him forever. That she would always be there to hold his hand and guide him to safety when his walls began to crumble, but she broke her promise and he was surprised when it hurt.
Because it did hurt, it felt like his hearts were being stabbed over and over, as he stared at the white wall, at the place she had been moments before, before she had vanished in a blinding flash.
And it hurt.
He tried to push the hurt away, tried to hide it with anger, but he couldn't and his mask slips as Donna angrily questions him about shirts and a friend who is long lost.
He asks Donna to travel with him, but she declines, and he supposes that in a way it's a good thing she At least that way he'll never have to feel the hurt of a broken promise.
He meets Martha next, beautiful, brilliant Martha Jones and she left him, but had she ever really promised him forever? No, he didn't think so, but he had told himself that she would be with him forever and he had believed himself.
So as she entered the TARDIS for the first time in a year that never existed, he knew, knew she wasn't coming with him, but he pretended not to notice.
He pretended to be clueless and shoved the hurt away as he rambled on about star systems and Henry the 8th, hoping, pleading, that somehow she would change her mind and stay.
She didn't.
And it hurt.
This time it was easier though, because Martha had left on her own, she hadn't been ripped away from him, like Rose and that was good.
That's when the Titanic appears, not the original, but a great big spaceship in the sky and he loves it, the new environment and then he meets Astrid Peth and she is brilliant and for a moment it feels like old times.
Running down corridors and escaping death, but then Astrid doesn't escape death and it hurts, everything hurts.
And for a moment as she falls he doesn't see Astrid Peth, no he sees another blond and a horrible white wall and he screams.
Then came the hope. The hope that burned with in him for a short few minutes before it was snuffed out and he realizes she's gone.
And it hurts.
But he moves on, he always moves on.
Then he meets Donna again, and for once it seems like the universe is playing to his advantage as they laugh and share the jokes that only best friends would understand and for once it doesn't hurt.
For once he forgets about everything, because this is Donna, amazing, brilliant, Donna Noble, who has saved him from himself more than once and she promises forever.
And he believes her, because she's Donna, and Donna wouldn't lie to him.
But then the stolen planets come and with them the Daleks, but he supposes in a way, not everything is bad, because he has Rose again, his wonderful, fantastic, Rose Tyler and she's holding his hand like she used to and he can see it again. He can see forever, but it was too good to last.
He leaves her with his clone, trying to forget the fact that they'll have forever.
Then it's Donna's turn and she begs and she cries, trying desperately to convince him to stop, but he doesn't.
And it hurts.
And this time the hurt doesn't go away, not even a little bit, and it makes him calloused and rough.
He screams at the universe, and he breaks time and he knows that he's going mad, but he doesn't care, because he'll be around forever and no one can stop him.
But forever is a lie and soon he too is gone, vanishing in an explosion of golden light and a new man is there and this man believes in forever, because this man wants to believe in forever.
So he finds Amelia Pond, amazing, daring, Amelia Pond and the wonderful Rory Williams and they become his Ponds.
And he knows that they'll stay forever, because they're family and family doesn't vanish. Family is inseparable, but then the angles come, the angles from New York and they take Rory and of course Amy has to follow.
And he begs her not to leave, begs her to stay with him, but she doesn't because her Roman is waiting again and she needs him.
And it hurts.
He begs River to stay with him, to travel with him, because he knows that in the end she leaves too. He's always known this and all he wants now is to spend every second he can with her. Before she vanishes in a blinding light and dies.
But she says no, and she leaves him.
And it hurts.
But he pushes it down and away, before leaving, he doesn't fly with the breaks on. Instead he settles down quietly on a cloud and falls to the floor of the TARDIS and weeps.
That's when TARDIS kicks him out and he screams at her, because he knows she's changing, but he doesn't want her to change.
He wants her to stay the way she is forever, but she changes just the same.
And as he opens the doors and looks at the new dark interior he remembers bitterly, that forever is a lie.
If you live long enough, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone