The Doctor is always up before I am. It's just a fact that whenever I open my eyes in the morning, I'll more than likely not find him next to me. But this time, the lights are still dimmed, almost to darkness, as the T.A.R.D.I.S does for us whenever we get in bed.

It can't have been long since I've fallen asleep, maybe an hour, maybe two.

I hear footsteps at my back, but I don't turn over to look at him. It'd just make him feel bad for waking me, and honestly I don't mind. I give him a hard time about it sometimes, poking fun at him, teasing. But it's always just that, teasing. He can do whatever he wants whenever he pleases, because I know I'd ask the same from him if I were… an eccentric alien who apparently doesn't appreciate the art of sleeping for many hours at a time.

The Doctor shuffles around for a bit. I hear the slide of fabric upon fabric and skin.

He's getting dressed for the day, already, the strange man.

He slowly makes his way out of the room, the rubber of his trainers making muted squeaks on the marble of our floor before he reaches the metal grating of the console room.

I listen for a while longer, but I don't hear anything anymore, not the clang of tools, not the tip-tapping of the console interface.

My body drifts back to sleep, the lull of unconsciousness stronger than the curiosity.

I open my eyes, the lights dimmed still, just like the night before.

A crash had woken me, that much I know, as if someone had dropped something in the room. I lay still, just listening, and after quite a while, I hear the Doctor let out a breath. Then the slight squeaks of his trainers again. Out into the console room, and this time I do hear more. Not the usual sounds of him working on the T.A.R.D.I.S or researching some idea that has jarred him out of sleep.

The slight click of the doors closing.

Has he just left?

I sit up, suddenly feeling very awake despite the fact that I've only slept a maximum of 120 minutes.

He's going on adventures without me, the sly little sneak.

I get out of bed, grabbing my thin green robe off the desk's chair, and wrapping it around the oversized shirt I'd been sleeping in.

That, or...

The niggling of an ancient and powerful human instinct tugs at my hearts, in the very back of my mind. A timeless and intrinsic instinct that is nearly impossible to suppress.

Jealousy.

That, or he's meeting someone. Another... female.

I want to reprimand myself for even thinking the sour thought. We've been through so much together, why would he seek someone else out? I'm perfectly good enough for him, and he's made it clear that he feels the way I do, time and time again.

Please, you're a mutt who never finished school and was too socially retarded to make friends. It's been years. You think a man who jumps from planet to planet, almost never staying in one place for more than a day, wouldn't get bored with the same old mutt after a few years?

I growl as I slip on some formal black flats in my hurry to get out the door, definitely not matching my current outfit.

Yes I'm planning to go into public in a gigantic shirt and undies covered in a ratty old robe, but hey, at least my shoes are fancy.

I whirl my way through the console room, pausing to check the external environment scanner. I don't recognize any of the coordinates, the planet overview, or the atmosphere content.

Oh, good, a secret planet that I know nothing about that he goes to while I'm asleep. How reassuring.

I open the doors slowly, quietly, and see that it's just about twilight on whatever planet this is. I look down, past my fancy footwear, to see ruddy, auburn colored grass, ever so slightly metallic, shining in the waning light of four suns. F

our suns, each spaced equally upon the horizon, each setting at the same time.

Probably makes for an oddly shaped orbit. I've never seen something like it...

I close the doors behind me, wrapping my robe tighter around my body, against the chill of the coming absence of those suns. I walk for a bit, into the field of reddish grass, following the indentations of a size 12 men's shoe in the sea of pliable plants. It takes me a while to reach the entrance to a line of strange, but magnificent flora.

Bulbous tubes of red, a diameter of probably a foot and a half, give or take, with silver veins winding their way up into a poof of silver on top. The tubes, the trunks, they're pulsing slightly, moving of their own accord without the help of the breeze. I would say they look like trees... But they just don't. I've never seen organisms like this, definitely plant-life, but able to move on their own.

I approach one in particular and gather the courage to place my hand upon it, the surface surprisingly tough and scratchy against my palm. It jiggles away from my hand as if my touch had tickled, and then comes back to press itself against my palm once again, slowly... Hesitantly.

It's as if it's curious.

A disbelieving smile spreads upon my lips, and my fingers stroke the odd tree, causing it to sway back and forth, its silver top spreading out to shower me with silver cottony tufts.

A giggle of delight bubbles out from me, and I snatch a tuft out of the air, holding it between my fingers.

Why would the Doctor hide this from me? He would've known I'd love this, I mean trees who respond to stimuli, can move on their own? It's amazing, absolutely amazing.

My eyes focus on the red of the bulbous trunk behind the silver tuft trapped in my grasp, and the two colors, one in front of the other, seem important.

Silver and red, red and silver.

I tuck the silver poof into my robe pocket and head into the thick of the jostling forest of tubular trees, following the trail once again. The tubes lean towards me slightly, as if they can hear my footfalls, or feel the vibrations of them. I know they don't have eyes, so they can't see me, but it's a bit disconcerting, having an entire forest hover over you.

One tube-tree, I like. A hundred of them, not so much.

At last, I pull through the thick of the trees, and they end abruptly, in a neat little line near a cliff. Walking out near the cliff, and looking over...

Well, it's breathtaking...

The wind is stronger in this spot, blowing my loose hair into the view before me.

Miles upon miles of the tube-trees. Or I assume, since all I can see over the horizon are the silver poofs of tree tops, every once in a while thinning to reveal the reddish-auburn grass. The tufts of silver sway happily under the burning orange sky, and it takes this, the crushing beauty of this sight, to make me realize what was so special about this planet. I let out a breath of annoyance at myself, taking the cottony puff out of my pocket, and letting it sit in my palm until the wind spirits it away...

The silver tree-tops, the red grass, the sunset causing the sky to be deep orange.

"I'm an idiot..." I mutter, watching the silver puffball disappear.

This planet...

"I wouldn't say idiot." I hear his voice, and it causes me to jump a bit. I look all around me, left and right along the cliff-face, behind me.

"Where are you?"

"Down here."

I get on my knees to peek my head over the cliff-face, seeing the Doctor sitting on a ledge about a foot or two down, one leg swinging over the edge.

It reminds me of my old perch near the waterfall, back at college. Precarious and easily dangerous if you made a wrong step. Perfect for nutters like us.

He looks up at me, giving me a little smile, and jerks his chin, silently asking me to come down.

I slide over the edge until I'm nearly dangling off the side of the cliff. Only then do my feet touch his ledge, and I allow myself to sink onto it, sitting with my back against the edge and my knees up to my chin.

We just watch the trees wiggle in the breeze below us for a bit, and he silently takes my hand in his.

"I searched for a place like this in my last regeneration, when I traveled alone" he says, "It took me so many years to find one that was just right. I tried out so many planets, and when I happened upon this one, it clicked."

"Why?" I say, my fingers massaging the fleshy parts of his palms, a hand massage, if you will, "Did you just want to remember, or..."

He shakes his head.

"It's funny... I left Gallifrey, and I was glad. The Time Lords as a society, well... Saying I never really fit in is an understatement. They were scornful, and borderline hateful to me. I was exiled, and I was glad of it." He says, lifting his face to the darkening orange of the sky with the most fleeting of smiles, "When I stole the T.A.R.D.I.S, I was so enthralled with the idea of leaving it all behind."

He drops his eyes to the wiggling tops of the silver trees.

"But when it was all gone, when I realized I could never see any of it again..."

I wanted to say I understood. I wanted to say it so badly, but I couldn't. I never can say that whenever he speaks of Gallifrey, or his people. I can never say I understand.

I think he's grateful that I don't, though.

"So, when I found this place, it became a sort of memento. Like a painting that some stranger does for you off of something you describe. Not very close to what you remember, but close enough."

I nod, not knowing what to say... I feel as though I've interrupted something sacred of his. We share so much, every single day of our lives, and so little is kept to ourselves, to be our very own. I have my journal, and he allows me to keep it as a separate piece of myself, most of the time...

This must be his. And I've just stumbled across it, stomped all over it, leaving my own little mark on something that was supposed to be his.

"I can leave... If you want." I say, and he looks at me at last, raising a brow.

"Do you want to?"

"Well... No, I just figured- I mean, this is private, isn't it? You meant to keep it secret. I don't mind, really. I can go." I say, and his eyes soften as he rests his head back onto the rocky cliff-face.

"I don't do this often, you know. It's not like I was trying to keep you in the dark, I just thought maybe you'd misunderstand."

"Misunderstand?" I say, following his lead, and resting my head back, drinking in the sights some more.

"I didn't want you to think I came here to... mourn. 'Cause that's not what it's for. That's what it used to be, but not anymore." He says, and I realize that maybe this is one of those rare times. Quite like when I get to wake up before him, and see him sleeping, his face clean of frown lines.

This is one of those times that I get to see him at peace. In this place, a planet so like Gallifrey in coloring and atmosphere, where he can become better, perhaps heal a bit of himself, basking in the orange light he didn't know he would miss.

It's so... unlike him. In a good way, a very good way.

He's trying to get better instead of purposefully tearing himself to bits, thinking he deserves nothing less than death by self-destruction.

I swallow thickly, my hearts swelling so enthusiastically that it causes my throat to tighten.

My Time Lord without the Time War. I might get to see that in a hundred years or so, if he keeps this kind of thing up.

I smile, and lean my head down onto his shoulder, causing him to scoot a little closer, his hand to tighten around mine.

We sit for quite a while, until the four suns have all but disappeared over the sea of silver treetops, and when we're back in bed after the trek through the forest, he falls asleep almost immediately.

Not a frown line to be seen.