Baby I have been here before

I know this room, I've walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you

I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

She was gone now.

And he was ashamed at how he'd nearly recoiled at her touch.

Especially when now he would have gladly cradled her ashes.

In a way, he had known. Somehow...

Everyone who spent enough of their life traveling through the universe started to know the smell of Time. It wasn't something you got just by aging and having the world age around you. No, you cultivated it by dashing from era to era, year to year, planet to planet. It wasn't that he didn't like the way humans or other beings who lived very, very linear lifelines smelled. But there was nothing quite like the scent of Time. Anyone who stayed with him long enough eventually wore it. Any being who has mastered time travel had it hanging about them. He loved it. It was wonderful and familiar and reminded him of the very best things and people on Gallifrey.

It was lovely.

And she had been bathed in it.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so scared.

He met each of her questions with a question of his own. He pulled away, he pulled back, he dawdled. He found her presumption frustratingly unnerving. He found the fact that she knew him when he didn't know her infuriating and terrifying. He never minded hurtling towards the future. That was what he wanted, what he always wanted. But the idea of the future coming at him. Streaking towards him at breakneck speed, all knowing, all seeing and carrying that dreadful book. Well, that was too much.

That diary with a color and a pattern so familiar, too familiar. He didn't notice it right away and he could only reason now, after it was all over that he didn't want to notice it. He had spent so much of his childhood gazing up at his mother's hands as she read him stories and fairy tales from a book that was just that color and with just that pattern. It was nearly identical though the contents were far different. In retrospect, he wondered had she chosen it because of some late night tale he'd told her when he was feeling sentimental? Had he given it to her?

In retrospect, he wondered had she chosen it because of some late night tale he'd told her when he was feeling sentimental? Had he given it to her?

Then there was the screwdriver, his screwdriver, so much his that it was nearly a part of him and there she was...holding it. It was used and worn and it looked as though it had helped to get her out of countless scrapes. He hadn't given his screwdriver to anyone, not ever, not Arkytior, not Rose.

"I'm going to be someone you trust completely."

He'd wanted to laugh but something about her presence held him fast to the spot, stopping his mouth.

There was no one he trusted completely. He loved completely, exhaustingly so. But he never trusted completely. Not anyone. Not ever. Not because he was a cynic or thought that betrayal was inevitable. But the tide of the universe was constantly changing and rolling. People didn't listen. They didn't follow his lead. They didn't just obey. That could lead to mistakes and mishaps and acting in what they thought was their own best interest or worse yet, his. And that could sometimes lead to betrayal. He didn't blame them. They were doing the best they could. But he didn't trust them.

And the idea of trusting this human woman, much less completely, was ludicrous.

He'd been spared the horror of watching his wife die, his first wife. He hadn't known that was a debt he owed the universe. An outstanding bill that he would one day have to bring current. But it was, and now it had been time to pay for that one small mercy.

She knew his name. His real name. His only name. And there was only one time he would tell someone his name. Only one time he could. Not at his wedding, not on his deathbed, not under any sort of compunction. Just one time, at the naming ceremony of his child. At one of the last holy rites that he held sacred. That ceremony, at that moment holding his newborn, his wife at his side.

A child. A child. She'd given him a child.

This was his wife and she was here one moment, and consumed in flames the next.

He had owed it to her not to look away but he did anyway. He listened as her heart was burned to cinder and he tells himself he couldn't watch because of the blinding light, but it was a wanting to comfort and be comforted and they sat in intimate silence together in the safety of the TARDIS. He was happy for her company, a sudden swell of nausea hitting him as he imagined having lost them both.

Donna hovered wanting to comfort and be comforted and they sat in intimate silence together in the safety of the TARDIS. He was happy for her company, a sudden swell of nausea hitting him as he imagined having lost them both. Eventually, they broke apart, each wanting to go to their own space to grieve in private.

Yes, he had "saved" her. But the triumph he felt in that moment soured as the hours went on. "Saved" her as thought waves and electrical impulse patterns whizzing around a fabricated universe? A flea circus. A pantomime. Was that something to be proud of? Was that the best the "real" him could manage in God knew how many years and how many regenerations hence?

If so...it was pathetic.

He didn't sleep often. He didn't need to.

He wept even less often than that...whether he needed to or not.

He let his mind dip in and out of memories that never were or perhaps were yet to be.

For some reason, the simple thought that he had never seen her in the sunlight, but only the dim artificial glare of the Library made his hearts ache.

Some people, he thought, were meant to be in sunlight. What did her face look like at sunrise?

He imagined the feel of the stiff robes of deep scarlet, the rigid collars, the words, so familiar. Those he said alone. Those he and River would speak together.

Then the giving of the name; first hers, then his, then together they would name their child.

But he couldn't allow himself to swim for long in that memory because it threatened to swamp and drown him, leaving him paralyzed under rolling waves of emotion. He willed himself out of it and lay there on his bed, red-eyed and silent.

If this was to ever happen, it wouldn't happen for him. This was her first time seeing his face meaning these were not to be his memories. That was not his life. This belonged to those who would come after him. Later Doctor. Future Doctor. The stab of envy he felt made him inhale sharply.

He hoped that whoever was fortunate enough to hold her in their arms in this bed appreciated it and her. Then again, knowing what was to come, how could they not?

As time would pass, there were so many truths he could draw from this day, this one terrible day but two stood out.

The first being that everything he loves eventually burns.

The second, that the Ood had told him this would happen and vain creature that he was he'd taken the message to be about him and only him.

Fool.

They had spoken plain and true

They told him that his Song would end.

And so it had.