Those eyes are staring at me, I'm staring back.
They seem older than I remember. They're colder too. So much more sorrow, much more pain than when I last seen them. Some would say that the eyes are the windows to the past, but I disagree, they're the windows to your past. But then, with him that could be anywhere. It could be the windows to the present or the future. At least back home I knew where he was going. I usually went too.
He's been through so much and I wasn't there.
His eyes are searching mine. I know what he's for, but he won't find it. This has happened too many times before. Too many people have tried to do this before. But I soon stopped that. Everything's hidden behind walls of iron.
He's confused now, even scared. This isn't the way a Time Lord's mind is supposed to be. A Time Lord is supposed to be free and boundless. A Time Lord is supposed to be limitless, completely natural. Not any more, at least, not for me.
Those eyes were the sapphires that guided me through those terrible years. After the Time War I was a memory, a shadow of a Time Lord. Those eyes were the only thing that showed me kindness, or a smile. Those pieces of purest sky were the only things that kept me running. I was a wreck, I wanted to lie down and die with my planet. I watched as the beautiful golden trees turned to ash. I watched as the sky turned from deepest violet to an ugly fluorescent orange bloodshot with red.
I still don't know if he did the right thing. He wasn't supposed to re-enter Gallifrey after that business with the Cyber men. But then, again, no-one really cared about that by then. We were all too busy running to the emergency pods. They had already thought of that. By the time we got there, they had blown them up. I got left behind. They just abandoned me and moved on. Then he turned up. The sound of the universe, that meant the sound of survival, the sound of life. The whirl of the TARDIS woke me up and he appeared, then we ran. He explained on the way. We couldn't leave for a few more days. The Darleks would still be scanning with tractor beams. The TARDIS would get pulled in and destroyed on sight. We wouldn't stand a chance.
"Just a few more days," he say as we ran, "just a few. Believe me, it gets better. So much better."