Forever.
That was how long she had wanted to be with him - she'd told him so herself.
Never say never ever...
Those were his words, his caution when...when she said she'd never leave.
Now those words were entwined in one cold, solid fact: He was separated from her forever, he could never see her again. And it hurt, not just emotionally but physically too; it hurt him to know she was gone forever.
After all, forever was a long time.
Never was final.
The words ran through his head over and over...forever...never...forever...never...
Again and again he tried to forget, to rid his mind of the plague that burned inside.
But then would every time he stop trying. Every time he forced himself to remember again.
Because if he forgot those words he would forget her, and that was even worse than remembering.
Late at night the TARDIS would be filled with a sound more alien than anything it had ever faced before in its eternity of existence: the sound of the Doctor crying.
He would lie there in his room or sit in the library or even lean against the inside of the doors of the TARDIS itself, tears running down his cheeks; the Oncoming Storm would let the rains fall in his heartache. And every morning he would wake up and find himself outside her room, knowing that he had wandered to that place the night before. That pilgrimage to her door was inevitable.
But he never went in. He had, once, the first time it had sunk in that she was gone. He had been to see it for himself, thinking it might help. But no matter how many happy memories were stored within those four walls, his hearts filled with the greatest sorrow he had ever dared imagine, greater even than what he had felt after the time war. After that he had resolved never to enter, but to preserve it, to preserve her memory in the only way he could.
Then, six months after that painful goodbye on the beach of Dårlig Ulv Stranden, something changed. The whispered words began to fade away.
The Doctor had done nothing, but the words were going, slipping out of his mind like water slipping out of the hands of a child.
Confused and worried, desperate not to forget the words, the sound of his love's voice, the Doctor turned to his ship for comfort.
That night the tears never came, but in their place there dawned a new realisation.
The words echoed within the TARDIS walls as the ship spoke to him, reminding him of something important:
It wasn't 'never', it was 'never say never ever'.
And forever is nothing for a time lord.
The Oncoming Storm could do anything, and he knew it.
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