The Doctor turned to the woman gazing around and gently stroking the TARDIS fondly. "Is there anywhere you want to go?" he asked. She jerked her gaze from the stolen time machine to him.
"You'll let me choose?" She asked, shocked.
"I think you've earned it," he smiled.
"Well, in that case, there is one place I want to go. Or rather, one time..."
...A girl laid in the sun, leaning up against an ancient tree in the middle of a great field, lazily reading in the August heat. Her birthday was today, but she had no one to share it with. She had accepted her abnormality and moved on. If there were tears on her frail cheeks, it was because of the book she was reading. It was a very sad book.
The girl started at a noise from behind her. She glanced around and saw a woman who, at catching the girl's attention, smiled nervously and said, "excuse me, but I've just walked all the way across the field. I'd like to sit here in the shade of this tree, if you please." The girl looked at the woman warily, but nodded. The woman sighed happily as she weakly set her frail body down on the ground. After a few minutes of silence, the woman shifted.
"I know you've been warned not to talk to strangers. For that reason, you don't have to reply to anything I say. I just want to say something to you that should have been said long ago,"
The woman gazed at the girl, patiently waiting for her to decide what to do. Something about her, thought the girl, seemed trustworthy, and she had only asked to talk. Grown-ups had done stranger things, she supposed. The girl patiently bookmarked her page and closed the book. She resettled herself for comfortable conversation and looked expectantly at the woman who was smiling a secret little smile at her. There was an emotion the girl had no word for behind that smile. It was somewhere between complete awe and utter despair. Or maybe the tension in the woman's lips was just hunger, it was nearly lunch time afterall. The woman took a deep breath and opened her mouth to begin.
"You are so incredible," the woman began, "you are amazing and you have no idea. Absolutely none," she chuckled.
The little girl sat, wide-eyed. This woman had obviously gone around the bend. She was anything but amazing. The other children all told her so. Even her teacher knew the girl was below average.
"That's what makes the others avoid you," the woman noted. "They think you're lying when you say you don't understand. They don't understand how you can be so innocent. You are surrounded by corruption." The girl didn't know what that word meant, but by the look in the woman's eyes, it must not have been good. "Even children have lost their innocence," the woman continued, immeasurable anguish marred her lovely face . "There is no room for it here, in this world," her eyes glazed and she suddenly seemed very far away. The girl almost reached out and touched the woman to bring her back before she suddenly refocused and pinned her soft gaze on the girl again. "But you have managed to do the impossible," the woman smiled kindly. "You have kept your innocence. You are so pure. Others are drawn to that like a moth to a flame, but they fear it," the woman paused and reclaimed the girl's attention. Her eyes had begun to wander. She didn't really understand why the strange woman was telling her this. Maybe it was one of those things that make sense only after many years of careful pondering.
Still, the woman kept talking. "They fear you. You are too good to be true. They can't help but be near you and, at the same time, are afraid of that helplessness. You are so small in your world, so fragile, so delicate. Your health is forever teetering on a knife's edge. You get so much better and then you get that much worse. That's another reason they don't trust you. You are too sick. They are petrified that if they make the connection, you'll die and they'll get hurt." The woman paused to take a deep breath. The talk of death seemed to exhaust her.
"You are so kind and caring to those who hurt you. You are in and out of hospitals all the time, you have been all of your short life. You are faced with mortality every day. You don't fear death, you are practically unaffected by your own coming death. You nurse those who need it and cheer those on their deathbeds.
"If I was a woman of faith I would call you an angel down from the heavens. That would be the closest comparison I could think of. In the future that is what you will be called. People all over the planet will know who you are. You will be known to both good and evil as The Angel. You will save so many lives. You will end so many wars. You will love and be loved by all. You will change the world. You will create the first world-wide Golden Age in all of our history. Children will learn about you in school and aspire to be like you when they grow up. You are the most amazing person the world will ever see. No one ever took the time to tell you, but I have all the time in the universe. You are beautiful. You are brilliant. You are kind. You are generous. You are funny. You are creative. You are amazing. You are incredible. But most of all, you are you. No one else can ever be you, no matter how hard they try.
"Right now, to you, who I am isn't important. But you are. You are so important. No one will ever love or be loved as much as you will.
"A year from now there will be people who care enough to remember your birthday and a year from then, enough to throw a surprize party you will never forget. A year from then, you will have a severe relapse and spend your birthday in the hospital. No one will come. You will leave the hospital and find all of your friends in the waiting room, arguing over who should go see you first. The hospital staff won't let you have any visitors and when they finally let your friends in, they won't let them all in your room to see you at the same time. Your friends will fight over the time they can spend with you.
"A year from then you will have graduated high school. You spend your summer going to the beach with your friends and learning to swim. A year from that you will have completed your first year of college. You will feel like you can touch the sky. You will have started working in hospitals part-time across the city. A year from then, all the people in the city will know your name. You will become a celebrity and soon after that you begin touring to give lectures to other colleges. You give advice to those who are lost, you tutor those who need it, nurse those who can't care for themselves, teach those who want to learn, feed those who are hungry, heal those who are sick, listen to those who need to talk, keep secrets for those who need help carrying their burdens, and cry for those who have no tears. You will become what you have the potential to be.
"I want you to remember the things I told you today. I want you to remember that you are special. When you feel down, remember that you are amazing. Remember that you have the potential to do amazing things. Remember that you will be remembered. You will be okay. I know you will. I'm confidant in you, you should be too. Believe in yourself and in others. Love and be loved, but most of all love yourself. How can they love you if you can't love you? Be proud and strong. And please, for your own sake, never lose your innocence." The woman cried, silent tears welling in her eyes. The girl was having trouble swallowing around the large lump in her throat. When the woman hugged the girl, they both let the tears fall and shook with the emotion of the words the elder had spoken. The girl clung to the woman and allowed herself to sink into her warmth. The woman embraced the girl with a mother's love although she had not been able to conceive any children, herself. They slowly pulled apart. The woman got up and began to walk away. The girl realized she had never said thank you, but when she opened her mouth, her words were lost to the August heat. The woman was gone. The girl saw a blue telephone box suddenly vanish as a haunting sound filled her ears.
The woman leaned against the doors of the TARDIS.
"I never forgot that sound. That's why I was out of breath when you saw me for the first time, I had just run three blocks to find the Blue Box of August, as I called it then." The Doctor looked at her with amusement.
"You know we just broke about every Timelord rule, right?" he mused.
"I know. I don't care," the woman replied with a grin. The Doctor noticed the tear tracks on her sallow cheeks and his brow wrinkled with concern. The woman laughed and touched his forehead with clammy fingers. "If you don't relax, your face will stick like that." The Doctor ignored this and looked at her seriously.
"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly. The woman smiled and looked up at the only person she had ever come close to loving romantically. Maybe, she thought, maybe if she had had more time, those feelings could have gotten the chance to grow. But then again, maybe not.
"I told her the truth. I told her everything that will happen in her life. I told her not to give up. I did the only thing I ever did well." The Doctor smiled sadly. She had changed the world and yet this woman still had the nerve to be humble. "But you know, I did lie about one thing," she continued. He blanched, she had only lied once or twice that he had been witness to, and those were each for very good reasons.
"What was that?"
"I don't have any time at all," the woman slowly fell to the floor before the Timelord could catch her. She lay there, just looking at the Doctor's face. "Remember that dreadful hat you were wearing when we met?"
He rolled his eyes, "I will never forget it if you would keep reminding me of it every chance you get."
"I think I'm going to miss you the most, Scarecrow," she laughed weakly. The Doctor smiled at her use of the nickname she had given him when she had seen the famed hat. In hindsight, it had made him look a bit like a scarecrow.
They laughed and joked for hours to come, neither acknowledging the tears on both of their faces and the arms clutched a little too tightly around each other. And there in his arms, as both of his scarred hearts broke, his best friend died.
On one day in August, the whole world watched as The Angel's ashes were spread beneath an ancient tree in the middle of a great field. One by one, all of her people pressed a tender kiss to the bark of her tree. So many made the pilgrimage to her tree that she was never again alone like she was as a child.
It was many years before her warrior, her Doctor came to see her tree. He sat in the shade her branches provided. He chose to talk to her memory, recounting all of their adventures and shared experiences. He talked about her accomplishments and his. He talked about his companions. The incredible Donna and his lovely, strong Rose who had made it back to him only to say goodbye. The Doctor knew that if his best friend were still alive, she would reprimand him for letting go of the woman he had loved like no other and leaving her with a copy of himself. A bad copy, at that! He told her of being alone again. She had been the only person to ever understand his loneliness. He told her he missed her and that she had been amazing. And then he left.
Through the decades and centuries to come, her lonely Doctor always found time to visit her tree. Sometimes he would talk as he had done the first time, and others he would just sit against her trunk in silence, taking comfort in her imagined presence.
His faces changed, but the man beneath them always remained. Her warrior, her Doctor, her Scarecrow. The man in the Blue Box of August with his sad eyes and unfortunate scarecrow hat. The man she had loved and trusted enough to allow to cradle her protectively to his chest with his cool, pinstriped arms as she took her final breath. The man she had unofficially handed the protection of her planet and its people over to. The wonderful impossible man who had met a wonderful impossible woman only to have her torn away by her devastatingly short life.