A very short one-shot I wrote while watching Rent.

Please read and review.

She had travelled with him for five years.

They had seen many adventures during their time together, all hidden to keep the fact he was alive secret.

And now as she lay dying in the TARDIS sick bay, she smiled up at the boyish face of an alien over a thousand years old, and the young child he held in his arms. Her illness had slowly gotten worse and worse, even alien medicine couldn't stop the virus known as AIDS.

~!~

She had met him five years ago on New Years Eve, he had landed in the same lane way that she was trying to sleep in. Her form was skinny and she was nearly dead, he had seen her and promised her the world. She had promised him her friendship and later on, gave him the gift that no one else had given him.

The gift of a child.

~!~

Their adventures had spanned many worlds and many times in the past, present and the future. From dancing on the Titanic to dancing in the streets after the war was over. From watching fireworks the very first time they had lit the sky up, to the very last time that they would light up Earth's sky. From being extras in the Lord Of The Rings movies (he was an Orc and she was allowed to be a hobbit) to being extras in a zombie movie. They had done a Zombie Walk through the streets of Melbourne and watched as Phar Lap won his last Melbourne Cup.

But it wasn't always fun and laughter, being with The Doctor meant that your life was in danger most of the time. The TARDIS knew that her thief needed a break, but when that break was over, she had taken him to where he needed to go. From saving the queen from an alien to stopping the Time Lines from exploding when the Titanic arrived in America. But the danger was never as real as the fate that dangled over her head.

Her death was one she could not escape. Through the future they had developed many vaccines and cures for AIDS, but the virus was smart and mutated, escaping the clutches of extinction to curse more people with its deadly clutches.

~!~

Her head felt like it was filled with rocks, her chest heaving as she tried to breath against the mucus building up inside her. The oxygen mask helped a little, but soon even it wouldn't be enough. The child on The Doctor's lap stirred and held out its little hands towards her, trying to take comfort from her as she slips slowly from the mortal world.

She scooped the child on to her bed, holding it as close as she dared, fearing that the disease would suddenly become airborne. The Time-Lord dna the child carried meant that they were immune from normal human diseases, which meant they had escaped the slow death that she was facing.

Coughs rocked her body as she continued to cling on to the last, desperate attempt to stay alive, but even her will was slowly dying. The TARDIS's hum was slowly going down in time with her.

~!~

She had found The Doctor in the moment in his life that he needed her the most. His heart shattered as he hid from everything. The memories of destroying his planet was eating him up as well as losing all his companions again to keep them safe away from him. Believing that he was dead, it was the only way that he could manage to keep them safe.

He had run away then, hidden in the world that had become his second home. His plan was to slowly rot in a lane way until the universe had forgotten him again, but the TARDIS had other ideas, which laid in a dying girl.

~!~

The child had been conceived by IVF, it was her parting and thank you gift for him. She knew how much he wanted a child once more, she promised to give him one. It was also her way of leaving something behind. Her blood line, to keep it going. She wasn't the last any more, the child was. But this time, the child wouldn't be alone. They would have a loving father, an over excitable ship and the whole universe at their feet.

~!~

The machine's beep slowly died down at two am that morning, going from a weak beat to a soft, flat line. Showing that she had lost the will to live. She had come in to the world to a junky mother with no love, and she had left the world surrounded by her child and the man that she had cherished as her best friend. The lights in the TARDIS dimmed as the machine was switched off and the child put to bed, before The Doctor walked back in to the room and collapsed back in to the chair in tears.

"Thank you, Alexis."