"You ever seen a super nova Emmy?"

She chuckled. "Yes Doctor. I watched them all the time back home. So boring...No you dummy. Of course I haven't."

"Would you like to?" He waggled his eyebrows at her.

"It's a date." She smirked.

"Excellent!" He returned to the console and began to push buttons and pull levers in the same frantic dance that alway preceded an adventure.

The TARDIS shook and spun. She held on for dear life. Same as always and then everything stilled.

He held his hand out to her the same way he always did. She always wished she knew what he was thinking when he did. She didn't know if he was anxious to stun her with whatever he knew lay outside the TARDIS doors or if he was just a little concerned that this might be the time she didn't take his hand, but she always did. She knew in her heart, that there was never really any other option. She'd always take his hand, no matter where he took her.

He led her outside. A bleak wasteland lay before her. Barren dirt as far as the eye could see. No buildings. No people. No lights, save that same ribbon of light that flowed out of the open TARDIS door like the yellow brick road.

"I know, it's not terribly impressive, but it's the light show we're after", and he pointed to the sky behind them.

She spun around, her boots pivoting in the grey sand. She could not prevent the small gasp that she made as her breath was taken away. It was the most stunning sight she had ever beheld in her life and they had a front row seat. A fiery orb woven of flowing rivers of fire hung in the inky sky before them. Iridescent wisps of light danced around it, swirling and sparkling. It was almost as though this star knew that these were it's last moments, it's pièce de résistance.

"A star is at it's most lovely just before it goes. The supernova remnant is a sight to see as well, but these last moments are without compare."

She gazed up at the sight before her. She took his hand and together, they witnessed the last moments of this force of nature that had existed far longer than she could comprehend.

"All thing's come to an end Emmy. Stars are a perfect example of that. They burn for billions of years, surviving everything that crosses their path, and then one day the core of the aging star undergoes a gravitational collapse and poof." He pantomimed an explosion with his hands.

"Poof?"

"Poof."

"Isn't the Big Bang how everything started though? It doesn't really end does it? Sometimes isn't it just the start of some other amazing thing?"

He locked eyes with her, grinning. He stared at her with that look, the look that made her feel like the only person in the universe, the look that she knew was her undoing. He threw his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Oh Emmy! You fantastic girl you! You can see it! You can always see it! Oh, you are magnificent!"

"What?"

He pulled back and stared back up at the sky. Perhaps it was not the look that was her undoing, but the moment it always ended. The moment she was reminded that she was not the only person in his universe. The moment his eyes went dark again. "When you are as old as I am, you can forget what it looks like."

"What what looks like?"

"Emmy, do you remember when you were little and you could play dress up and in your mind you could see it all? You would go outside and the garden was a jungle and the cupboard in the kitchen was an impenetrable fortress. Then one day you got just old enough, that pretend seemed silly and you realized that you just couldn't see it anymore and your heart broke just a little bit because you knew there was no way you could ever get that completely back?

"When you are as old as me, you just can't see it anymore. But," he turned back to her as she watched him push the darkness back below the surface "you can see it, and when you see it, for a minute I can see it again too. You give that back to me for just a bit. For just a small, wonderful moment, I can see the magic of the universe again." He made a small, sad smile.

"Doctor, I cannot possibly be telling you one thing you do not already know."

"No, but you show me what I can no longer feel."

He kissed the top of her head again. She felt the warmth of his breath in her hair and smelled him all around her. That smell that was distinctly her Doctor. He smelled like the TARDIS and adventure and jammy dodgers and old books. It enveloped her like a warm blanket. She felt she could stay in his embrace forever. It was intoxicating. That was when he pulled away. That was always when he pulled away. It was as though he knew she was on the precipice of falling head first into something she wouldn't be able to crawl out of. He wouldn't have been wrong.

"Well dear, we best be on our way. Can't be standing here when it goes. Massive levels of radiation and all of that. Let's go ahead and park out there." He pointed to the sky behind them. "Much much much further out." He clapped his hands together and she followed him into the TARDIS.

She sat at the console seat and waited for him to work the magic that he always did on the controls. She had been waiting much longer than usual when he finally spoke up. "Well...that's...not ideal."

"Not ideal? What's wrong doctor?"

"Weeeellll..." He drug out the word the way he does when he's trying to avoid saying something unpleasant.

"Doctor." She said with her hands on her hips.

"Well. It seems the combination of the magnetic pull present in the planet's core and the radiation already being emitted from the instability in the star has, for lack of a better term, made the controls all wonky."

"Wonky, Doctor? What does that mean?"

"It means I need to make some adjustments before we can take off."

"Oh OK. Well get to it."

"It's not that simple dear. Based on the TARDIS' calculations, we have approximately two hours before the thing blows and I have about two and a half hours worth of repairs. It won't be a problem for me. This level of radiation is nothing to a Time Lord's body. You however..." A look of immense grief fell over his face.

"Doctor? What? What does that mean?" She asked beginning to panic.

"I...it's not good."

"It's not good? Damn it Doctor? What in the hell does that mean? Out with it!"

"As a human, you are very limited in the levels of radiation that your body can withstand. A supernova would emit levels far higher than you could tolerate." He was speaking so quietly now that she could just barely hear him.

She was quiet for a moment before she looked up at him. "Well, you better get to work on it, because I have no plans on being burnt to a crisp today. That's your thing. The impossible. Get to it." She barked at him with her hands on her hips again.

He stared at her for a moment, and finally nodded and began the frantic, dance that he did when the odds were against him and he didn't have any idea how he was going to solve this impossible task that lay before him. All the while, everyone around him thought he had it under control. She knew better though. She had seen him do this a hundred times before on a hundred other planets with a hundred other problems. Somehow it always came out in the end, but what she knew that everyone else didn't was that it was usually shear dumb luck. Something would happen that bought them just a little more time, or the huge gamble the Doctor was making somehow paid off. Very rarely was it all part of the plan. She always feared, in the back of her mind, the day that it didn't all come together. That the Doctor was not able to fix something in the nick of time.

She followed him around handing him things like a surgeon's assistant. He would mumble calculations under his breath and she would dig for the next item she thought he might need. An hour had passed at this point. He was tugging at a large mass of wires that seemed to be held together with duct tape. She wondered for a moment if it was her duct tape that she had given him that day on the beach. The day that her whole life had changed. Funny, that the thing that would always remind her of the day that the love of her life stumbled into her's was a roll of dollar store duct tape.

She chanced a glance at him. His shoulders hung and he ran his hands through his hair. She walked up to him an placed her hand on his shoulder. She crossed her legs and sat down in front of him. He looked up into her eyes and she saw tears in his. "I'm so sorry Emmy. I can't do it. I'll never get us out of here in time."

"Doctor don't say that. I have faith in you."

"Well you shouldn't!" He glared at her. She had never seen him like this. His voice dripped with rage, but the only thing she saw in his face was terror.

"And why not Doctor?! Because you're not perfect? I know you're not! If anyone knows that, I do. I never expected you to be. But the one thing I do know you are is a good man. A good man that never gives up. I've always loved that about you." Her breath was staggered and her chest heaved. Her hands were clenched at her side.

"Emily, I am not a good man." He was looking manic now. His face was contorted with emotion. "I am far from good. I am selfish. Above all things, in all these centuries, I am selfish. I am the last of my kind. By my own hands, I am alone. That is my punishment, but I am too selfish to accept my fate. I bring you along. You're not the first, but you know that. I whisk you off on these adventures and you are all so enchanted by the grandeur of it all. Your human minds lack the ability to process the enormity of the universe. You have no choice, but to be awestruck and amazed by all of it. You all fall hopelessly in love with the whole experience, and I know that, but I bring you anyway because I love the way you look when you try to take it all in. It's like when I was little and about to look into the untempered schism. The wonder of it all. When I'm with you, it's like for just a moment I can almost feel that again. Standing there, Gallifrey all around me and even it seemed small by comparison. Do you know what that's like Emily? To know you can never have any of that again, and have the reminder of it just out of your reach, in sight. It's like a drug and damn the consequences to all of you if I can just have that for a second. Why do you think I rarely travel with anyone, but humans? They see it. I'm not a good man, Emily. I'm lost."

He looked defeated now, exposed, and in that moment she realized that this was the first time he had said any of this out loud. She threw both her arms around him and held him to her so tightly she thought she might not be able to breathe.

"Yes you are, Doctor. I have no delusions about who you are. I never have. You're hurt, and broken. You live with a grief and guilt that I cannot ever begin to comprehend. I know you also have your share of blood on your hands. I've never tried to deny that about you. However, I have watched you put yourself on the line more times than I can count for individuals all over the universe. I've seen you save countless people and planets. I'll never know the details of the Time War. I don't need to. The fact of the matter is, you made a choice. You could have crawled into the abyss and let the grief overtake you, let it cripple you, but you didn't. You stood up and did what had to be done. You moved forward. You kept on. You don't always get it right, but no one does. You are a flawed being with a tragic past and you are doing the best you can with the tools you have. In that respect, you are more human that you realize, and I think that is spectacular. Good men are not perfect men. Good men are flawed men that try to do what's right. So yes Doctor, you are a good man and you won't ever convince me otherwise. In fact, you are one of the best men I've ever known. So, I've watched you attempt the impossible for hundreds of others on hundreds of other planets. I'm just asking you to do the same for me. I'm not asking you to succeed. I'm just asking you to not give up."

He looked down at her, his face so childlike. "It's not that I'm giving up Emmy. It's that I know if I fail, I lose you and I think it might just kill me."

She stared up into his eyes. She wanted to say something, anything, that could convey to him what she was feeling in this moment. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. All of him. The good, the broken. She wanted to say that she would give anything to take his pain away. More than anything, she wanted to kiss him. They stood that way for a moment, just on the precipice of allowing the moment to take them. In the end, it was Emily that stepped back from the edge they were teetering on.

"Well then what's next?"

" I won't finish in time, but there is one last thing I can do."

"Out with it."

"I have what's called a chameleon arch. It is designed to rewrite every cell in your body to completely convert you into another species. I could convert you into a species that could tolerate the high levels of radiation and ensure your survival."

"Well why didn't you say that earlier you big oaf?!"

"It's not that simple dear. The process is extremely painful and could damage your neural functions, specifically the ones dedicated to memory. I've never tried it on a human before. The results are unpredictable at best."

She didn't even bat an eye. "I trust you."

"Why Emily?! It could kill you!"

"I'm as good as dead anyway Doctor. Look. I always knew something like this was a possibility. You didn't let me go into this blindly, remember. If I'm gonna go, I'd just as soon it be at your side. For no other reason than you are my best friend and who doesn't want to be surrounded by the people they love at a time like that. I plan to go out fighting. If this is even remotely possible then we're gonna try. If I learned anything from you it was to believe in the impossible. Now how do we do this?"

He led her over to a seat near the console and pulled a device down from the mass of wires that was directly above her head. He placed it on either side of her temples.

"Emmy are you sure?"

"Yes Doctor. Just do it."

He nodded and started adjusting dials.

"Doctor, out of curiosity, what are you changing me to?"

He cracked a small, almost undetectable smile at this. "Time Lord of course."

" I guess that'll do." She grinned at him.

"Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." She nestled further into her seat, preparing for what was to come. "Wait Doctor."

"What is it?"

"I just. If I don't, you know. Well I just want you to know that..." She sighed. "this was the best. OK? No matter what happens, no regrets OK? Good and bad, this was the best. I want you to know that...I wouldn't change a thing." She gave him a small smile and breathed a small prayer.

His brow furrowed. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Then he pressed a button and everything went black.

When she came to everything was shaking fiercely. She had a splitting headache and all she could see was the Doctor running around pressing buttons and pulling levers, looking more disheveled than she had ever seen him before. She was suddenly tossed out of her seat and she rolled across the TARDIS floor.

"Doctor! What is going on?!"

"Ahh! You're up. We lucked out dear. Where was a serendipitous momentary decrease in the radiation levels being emitted by the star. I was able to stop your conversion and get this old girl off the ground." He said lovingly patting the control panel before everything started to shake violently again.

"Where are we?"

"That's the tricky part love. Still trying to navigate out of the surrounding area. We're not out of the woods yet!"

The whole ship did what felt like a summersault. Emily reached frantically or anything to hold onto. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain blast onto the back of her head and everything went black again.

She slowly opened her eyes. Pain filled them as they tried to accommodate the bright light that assaulted them. Her head throbbed and her body ached.

"Doctor?"

She sat up. Where was she? Her eyes started to focus. It was familiar. It was her living room.

"Doctor?"

No response. Panic started to envelope her. "Doctor!"

Nothing.

No. No. No.

She started running through the house searching for him. Maybe he was just upstairs. Nothing. She ran out onto the beach. Nothing. She fell to her knees in the sand and tried to make the pain in her chest subside. She tried to breathe. She tried to think. She couldn't do any of it. She was gasping and finally the tears came. The tears came and threatened to never stop because she knew. Deep down she knew that he had left her. She knew why he had left her. His guilt was his greatest driving force. The love of her life had done what he thought would save her life. The only problem was that, without him, it wasn't a life she wanted to live. He was gone and she was alone.

She wasn't sure how long she had sat on the beach, staring at the sand. She could still see, so vividly, him stumbling out of the TARDIS, that grin on his face. She could hear his voice. She rocked herself with her arms around her chest, an unconscious attempt to hold together her shattered heart.

The sun had stated to set out over the water. The rose colored streams of light cutting through the clouds pulled her out of her daze. Her throat stung from sobbing. Her chest ached. Her face felt stiff from the tears that had dried to her cheeks. She sighed. She was at a loss. She climbed to her feet and began to walk back to the house. She glanced down at the coffee table. Her pink journal lay there, it's cover and pages now worn with three years of use. She picked it up and held it close. She flipped through the pages and the smell of the TARDIS filled her lungs. Her breath caught in her throat. She set it down and took a step back. She took slow and measured breaths. She tried to clear her mind. She had a choice to make. Fall into the abyss or move forward and live. One terrified her and one broke her heart, so she opted to do neither. She did the only thing she had the strength to do, turn everything off. It hurt to much to grieve. She didn't have the strength to try and move on. She could, however, breathe in an out. She could push through the tasks of living. She knew she was strong enough for that. Maybe someday, she would be brave enough to try to feel, but until then she could at lease exist. That would just have to be enough for now.