A passing thought of how someone's world could be shattered by a lie they had been living all their life, a life with the Doctor

Disclaimer: the usual- don't own the Doctor or the TARDIS. Any copying is unintentional and unknowing by me.

A Previous life

A dream that was not real. It was just a dream. A passing fancy that broke my heart. I have to move on but I don't want to. He has touched my life. He showed me the universe and I showed contempt. What I really liked were the quite places. We would land in a field and he would laugh as he looked at a screen. He knew I would love it and I loved him for it. I never loved loved him, he was a friend. My best friend ever.

Sometimes we would land in a city. We would go get something to eat and explore. Sometimes we found baddies lurking in the shadows and of course he would fix that. Or at least try.

When the regeneration came I was so scared. His face, his whole skeleton jerked and his skin melted to a new shade. Golden energy came out of his pores. He was younger but older. He wanted to be alone but wanted me there. I was trapped in a wondrous prison. I explored her, discovering new rooms, uses for which I could only speculate. And there. A room full of pictures. Most covered. They were like moving photographs. I touched one showing an apartment block in what was undoubtedly New York and got a whiff of carbon dioxide. Another was also showing a house. A narrow thing with two windows above each other wedged in-between two similar houses. I lent closer as I touched and my head plunged into cold air. My head was in that street. I laughed as a dog began to bark and a child ran away screaming at the sight. I quickly pulled back into my world and turned round. He was watching me. I stared at him. Neither said a word.

I had met others who used to travel with him. They always spoke of his being able to make you speak just by staying silent. Well I could do that trick too. We stood for a timeless amount of time looking in each others eyes. I imagined a wall deflecting his psychic abilities. He wasn't going to get me that way. He cracked first.

"Leave" he croaked.

I just walked.

I stopped off in my room and packed my rug sack. In the control room I fiddled with the switches until we landed and walked towards the door.

Come on Doc

I open the door

You were just a bit upset. No need to kick me off.

I step on dew speckled grass and breathe bracingly icy air of a summer morning

Please stop me

The door closes and I get about twenty yards before I hear the wheezing sound.

I look around fully expecting to see the TARDIS fade, vortex tendrils swallowing up the blue box that was my home.

I realise it's me. I can't breath. I drop my bag and try to run, walk, stumble-anything to get back but I collapse.

In the zero room he is sitting staring at the wall. Bottomless eyes misted over in thought as his finger drew on his trouser leg. He knows I'm awake but refuses to look at me. I continue to look at the ceiling.

Silence.

Once there was laughter and warmth but now just blank.

You don't want me anymore.

He senses the despair that came from that thought and now looks at me. I turn over on to my side and curl into a ball. The tears won't stop coming. He touches my shoulder and I shrug him off.

He persists and I let him lift me up into a hug.

"I should have told you." He whispers.

"No. I don't want to know. I loved being stupid. I loved being your daughter."

"But you never where."

I pull away. "How could you say that? After all these years you couldn't consider another mans daughter your own? Even in your mind? He made me, yes. But you Made me who I am. Do you not sometimes say mind over matter? He made my body and you made my life. That, Doctor, is why I still consider you my Daddy. Not my father."

"You're a part of him."

"And you can't see past that? Doctor I am me. Not him."

Tears now spill out of his eyes. I can sense memories flood to the front of his mind. My mother and his secret love for her. He loved her so much that she let her go. To my father who she thought she loved. I can taste his panic and fear as the memory of her stumbling into the TARDIS, heavily breathing and fearing for her life, enough to call for his help. He answered straight away and dematerialised off that damned planet.

His sense of loss so great it almost engulfs and drags me with it. I can see my mother from his eyes. Auburn hair soaking up a graze to her hairline. Eyes dulling. I can hear his screech of pain, of fear and of loss. He mourned for about one minute until he looks at her body. Her enlarged abdomen. The hatred he had for that bump scares me. But then he goes to the kitchen and gets a knife. He rescues me from my mother's body. He takes me and washes me, clothes and feeds me. By the time he takes me back into the consol room my mother's body is gone.

More memories flood my brain. My first steps, my first word.

I look in his eyes. They say,

You are my daughter in every way. I brought you up and shared your life and experiences. My love for you is so great I can almost feel like drowning in it but you have to move on.

"You are over a hundred years old now Eleanor. Time for you to live your own life. You've seen how dangerous it is with me. Go. "

A dream that was not real. It was a dream above all dreams. A passing decision that lasted for years that ultimately broke my heart. I have to move on but I don't want to. He has touched my life. He showed me the universe and I now have to live in it, after living outside of it all my life. I loved him for it. As I saw the TARDIS fade into the vortex I knew a new life had begun for me. Whether I wanted it to or not.