I take a minute to appraise my new body. Slim, tall, long legs. Long brown hair falling halfway down my back. I'm now five-foot-three – a nice change from before. My jeans are too short, though, and the shirt is a little too big. "Doctor?" I call behind me. "You wouldn't happen to have a wardrobe in here, would you?"

I can hear disbelief in his voice. "What? Um, yeah – third door on the left down that hall."

He pulls himself to his feet and brushes himself off. I return a moment later in a new pair of straight-legged dark wash jeans and a button-down short-sleeve shirt with thin sky blue stripes on white. I'm carrying a pair of sneakers to put on later, but I prefer going barefoot. "Hello, Doctor. Something wrong?"

"I – you just – Rebecca?" he stammers. "What just happened?"

I laugh. "Oh, Doctor, it's been far too long! Six hundred years now?"

"Since what? You're not saying you're six hundred years old!"

"Oh, please, don't be ridiculous. I'm eight hundred seventy three."

He's recovered a bit by now – enough to take control, anyway. "You – sit down. Start talking. We are not going anywhere until you've explained yourself."

I hold my hands up in mock surrender. "All right, all right. I am an eight hundred seventy three year old Time Lord from Gallifrey."

"But you were on Earth! You haven't got a TARDIS or anything – that's impossible!"

"Stop interrupting, Doctor. About six hundred years ago a small group of us decided to travel to Earth and stay a while, see how they progressed normally and whatnot. We ended up arriving in London around 1415 AD. We made a pact not to use a TARDIS unless our lives depended on it until 1500 AD or so."

"Why would anyone want to do that? Watch time pass… normally? It's so slow!"

"Honestly, Doctor! It was a – an experiment, you could say. Almost like a vacation from aliens and beasts that threaten time and space. Anyway, 1500 came. We all packed up, opening our TARDISes for the first time in eighty-five years. There were three of them for a dozen of us to share. I was meant to be with three others, but they were helping a younger group get settled in for the journey back. Something – something went wrong and – I'm sorry, Doctor, it's just…" I take a deep breath and continue. "They left. Their TARDIS left and I was stuck. I knew how to fly her, but it wouldn't work. She wasn't dead, just – not responding. I don't know. All I knew was that I was alone, stranded on Earth until someone could help me fix her." I look up. He's standing against the console with his head down. I wipe my eyes. "But no one came. I waited, moving around so I wouldn't have to explain myself. Centuries passed, and I kept waiting, hoping someone would come back for me. But they never did." I'm crying now, but I have to finish my story. "Around World War I, someone found me where I was hiding in the woods. I still looked like I was twenty. They thought I had lost someone in the war or something, so they took me in, brought me to someone, started caring for me. I couldn't just go on not aging, and I couldn't disappear. I guess I grew attached to them. I don't know what happened next, or how, but something changed. I started aging. In 1995, I had grown old – so very old, physically, and my body gave out. I regenerated, sort of – I had a new body, but I was still growing. I had regenerated as a little baby. A family found me, took me in, raised me. With everything that was happening, I started to forget. I started to become human. One of my hearts stopped. I began to forget everything I had learned in my eight hundred years. And then I found you." I look up, smile at him, tears streaming down my face. "Being so near another Time Lord, and the energy of the TARDIS – it brought me back. I regenerated again – that's what you saw there – and I'm Time Lord again. I've got two hearts. I can remember everything that's happened since I was born nearly nine hundred years ago. So… Thank you, Doctor, for bringing me back."

He looks at me. He's starting to cry now. "Oh, Rebecca. I – I'm so sorry." He reaches out, embracing me. "No one should have to go through that." I'm almost sobbing, so sad and happy and full of sorrow and hope at the same time.

"What happened, Doctor?" I ask, not lifting my head from his shoulder. "Why didn't they come back?"

"There was – there was a war. A great war. The last Great Time War. And – oh, I'm so sorry. I really am. But I – I had to." Now he's crying. "I killed them. The Daleks, they're gone, too. But so are the Time Lords. I had to kill them all." He holds me out, looks me in the eye. "I'm so sorry, Rebecca. It was the only way. They all wanted to – to control the universe and time and space and everything in between. But I couldn't let that happen."

We both just sort of stand there for a minute, comforting each other. Why must life be so difficult? Finally, he speaks.

"Just look at us," he says, smiling through tears. "The last Time Lords in the universe. Who would've thought, right?" I look at him and can't help but laugh. He's right, though. The two of us, completely alone no matter how may people are with us. It's so weird, I guess, to think that neither of us would've imagined this. Being the last one, all alone, and then having your world turn around in minutes when you realize you aren't the last. And there we are. Laughing with tears in our eyes, standing together, in the middle of a bigger-on-the-inside TARDIS.

"Well, Doctor," I start. "There you have it. My story. So what's yours – besides the, uh …"

He nods, knowing what I want to say without actually saying it. "Me? Nothing interesting, really. Well, a little interesting. Different." He grins. "I stole her and ran away," he says, gesturing to the TARDIS. "And I've been running ever since."

"All alone?"

"No. Well, not always. Sometimes people join me, but then… they have to go. It's all right, though. I like being on my own."

"Stop lying, Doctor. No one likes being on their own." I search his eyes for something else, something that I know must be in there. I sigh. "Anyway, what about this TV show? Doctor Who – why?"

He grins again. He looks so happy, like a kid in – well, in a time machine with the universe ahead of him. "I'm really not sure where it came from. It was a little too late when I found out about it. That's why they stopped filming, actually – I sort of, I don't know, encouraged them to stop. I hadn't realized how well-liked the show was. So, 2005, I come back, tell them they can keep going – with a few rules. One: I choose the actors. Two: I get final veto power on all ideas regarding the show. Yeah, I think that's it."

I laugh. "So you're controlling the show?"

"What? Oh, no, of course not – well, a bit, if that's what you're going to call it."

"Well, then. Suppose we get going?" I suggest, stepping towards the controls.

He joins me. "Where to? Oh, it's been so long since I've had help. So very, very long!"

We start preparing her for departure. "Appalapachia?"

"Appalapachia!" he exclaims, throwing a lever. We hold on to either side of the console as she departs and starts flying through the vortex. He gets this wild look in his eyes, and I understand it completely. To be with another Time Lord, someone who can understand you and help you – it's just fantastic! And, for the first time in centuries, I get to feel that adrenaline, that exhilaration of flying through time and space with a universe ahead of you! All too soon, though, she lands.

"We've landed," I state.

"So we have."

"What do you reckon's out there?"

"No idea – isn't it great?"

"What about the atmospheric readings?"

"Oh, come on - no one actually uses those anymore! Let's go have us an adventure!" We stride to the doors, throwing them open. "Rebecca, welcome to Appalapachia!"

But it certainly doesn't look like Appalapachia. A Cyberman and a Dalek stand side by side.

"You will be deleted!"

"Exterminate!"

"Doctor?" I whisper. "Where are we?"

"No idea," he replies, "but I don't think it's Appalapachia."