~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TWENTY YEARS LATER (from their perspective)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~THREE YEARS LATER (from mine)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Are you sure they'll be there?" I asked the Doctor, still shy about meeting them again.

We had just defeated the Daleks again, with the help of Torchwood, UNIT, Sarah Jane and her son, K9, Rose, and Donna. In celebration, we had thrown a party in the TARDIS as we towed the Earth back to its normal position (the Daleks had taken it elsewhere in an attempt to destroy space and time.) Now the TARDIS was parked somewhere in the wilderness of San Francisco, in the year 2012. According to the Doctor, he had told Matt to bring the band to this exact spot at this exact point in time, but I had my doubts. Maybe he had forgotten; it had been twenty years, after all.

"I'm sure," he said, nodding towards the door, urging me to open it.

Shyly, I placed my hand on the handle and pushed, doubtful I would see them. But sure enough, outside stood a single black trailer, and off to the side stood three silhouetted figures; two standing, looking out over the ocean, one sitting, looking up into the stars.

For a second I stood back, shy. The four boys I had known... they were so much younger. Now they had grown, and compared to them, I had stayed almost the same. What would they say, when they had made such great progress over the past twenty years, and I had done close to nothing?

"Go on then," the Doctor muttered, nudging me forward.

I stepped through the trees, the cold San Francisco wind whipping through my hair. I kept walking, afraid to make a sound, until I was around ten feet away from them. I took a deep breath, unaudible though the wind, and said simply, "Uh... hi..."

They turned around to see who it was, and when they saw me, their faces lit up like candles. "Martha!"

Before I could respond, Matt was hugging me, squeezing me tightly, cold from being outside for however long he had been here. "I haven't seen you in years!"

"You haven't changed at all!" Chris exclaimed, hugging me as soon as Matt found the strength to let go again. "What are you?"

"Time travel," I choked, trapped in Chris's supertight megahug.

"Sorry," he muttered, letting go of me. I gasped for breath, grinning.

"So when are you going to introduce me to your boyfriends?"

I turned around to see a flirty-looking Jack Harness leaning casually against a pine tree, the Doctor casting him dirty looks. "Jack, no."

"Oh my gosh..." I covered my face in my hands, blushing. "I'm so rude..."

Jack grinned. "I'm actually quite a fan myself, I just wanted to know who these 'old friends' of yours were." Then suddenly his face turned jealous. "You fought daleks with Matthew Bellamy?!"

"Jack, no."

He glared at the Doctor. "What, so now I'm not allowed to be surprised?"

The Doctor raised his head and eyed him suspiciously. "For you, that's flirting."

"With who, Matt?"

Hearing this, Matt gave me a quizzical look, like I have fanboys? I grinned at him laughingly.

"You don't know Jack," I told him jokingly. "He flirts with everyone."

"I am not flirting with him!"

The boys' banter fell into the background as my eyes fell on Dom. He was the only member of the band who didn't seem especially joyful to see me, even though he had been rather attatched to me all those years ago. Rather than smiling, he gazed distantly out into the fog that cloaked the northern tip of the Peninsula, the same color as his own silver eyes.

"Dom?"

He looked up at me, startled out of his daydreaming state. "Yeah?"

"I was just... making sure you were okay," I said awkwardly.

"Oh."

His sight seemed to fade into the distance a bit, and he looked off to the side. "I'm... I guess I'm fine."

Sensing there was more, I slid down the trunk next to him. "What is it, Dom?"

He pulled his right knee closer to him and rested his arm on it. At first glance it may have looked casual, but to me it was a gesture of loneliness. He wanted to curl up and hide from the world, but at the same time he wanted to look strong.

When he spoke, he simply pointed out the fact that Matt had a few minutes ago: "You're younger than me. How did that happen?"

"It's the way it's supposed to be," I said simply, noticing the sadness in his voice.

He nodded, looking back out at the fog. "If you say so."

We sat in silence for a second, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

"What's wrong, Dom?" I said simply, finally breaking the silence.

"It's just..." He fumbled a little, shifting his weight. "I think you were the first girl I ever truly loved, and then I got over you, and now..."

He faded away, knowing he didn't have to say what came next.

Suddenly everything felt wrong. I didn't know what to say. How do you tell someone you don't love them without breaking their heart? I didn't have much experience in this type of situation, and the closest I'd ever gotten, it was the other way around.

I put a hand on his shoulder. "That's okay, Dom. That's not a bad thing."

He shook his head. "But in a way... it is. I've gotten on without you. I have a girlfriend now and everything. You say it's not bad, but in reality... will I ever see you again? Or will you dissapear from my life again, truly forever this time?"

With these words came the realization that I knew, to some level, how he felt. I had loved someone, long ago, and he never knew. Then he left, and, as time passed, I lost hope that I would ever see him again.

But then, just as I had finally let go, he returned to me. And I had realized that, to some level, I still loved him, my lonely angel... But it was too late now. I had moved past that, convinced myself he was just another star in the night sky.

But he wasn't.

I wanted to tell Dom that it would be okay, that there was always the chance, even the smallest chance, that we might see each other again over time. I wanted to tell him it was okay if he loved me, that it wouldn't make a difference on the big scale. But I knew it would be a lie; life wasn't a fairytale, after all. Even happy endings had their prices. Either way, it wouldn't help his mood.

"If it helps, I know how you feel, and I don't want to hurt you, and... I'm sorry, Dom."

"Oh, don't be sorry," he scoffed, resting his forehead in his palm. His voice was shaky, as if afraid it would lose its balance and topple off the top of the world. "It's my fault I'm in love with you, and not really anyone's fault you're so beautiful..."

A single tear fell from one of his eyes. He blinked, trying to hide the fact that more were on the verge of following the last one, barely held by surface tension.

Maybe he hadn't grown as much as I thought he had. Maybe on the inside, he was just as young as he had been when I met him, twenty years ago. Maybe he was even younger, lost and afraid, new and confused. A seven year old in a thirty seven year old's body.

I wrapped my arms around him, unable to take it anymore. I had no idea he could be so emotional. "I'm so sorry..."

For a second he paused, surprised, his arms unsure where to go. Then, slowly, he hugged me back, still shy around me.

"Does this mean you love me, then?" he whispered softly.

"I don't love you," I answered, still holding him tight. "But you're one of the best friends I've ever had, and I hate seeing you so heartbroken."

He nodded, and I felt another tear escape from his silver eyes. "Got it."

After a little while of hugging, I managed to untangle myself from Dom's arms without making him cry again. By now, Sarah Jane, her son, Donna, Rose, and K9 had followed Jack to the clearing and were chatting (or, in Jack's case, possibly flirting) with Matt and Chris. Rose, being a Matt fangirl, was going crazy, and giggling (which was actually kind of creepy, considering the only times I had ever seen her, we had been fighting aliens of some sort.) Donna, having never heard of Muse, was chatting casually with Chris and Sarah about the horrors of traveling in a TARDIS, especially with the Doctor.

"And then we went to Pompeii! The day before it erupted!" she was saying, to gasps and wide eyes. "And the Doctor fought off giant lava creatures with a water gun!"

At this, the three burst into laughter. The Doctor, hearing his name, looked over from the tree he was leaning on and grinned.

Sarah's son, Matt, Jack, and K9 were off near the cliff, also talking about previous experiences in the TARDIS and with aliens in general. Apparently, Matt had been in contact with aliens a lot since I last saw him, based on what he was telling the others about a concert in Japan a few years back:

"-there were cat people! Weal, living cat people at our gig in Tokyo! When they asked us for autogwaphs, I got a picture with them for pwoof. They were the sweetest things, too... Said they were fwom a planet called Kehawa, vacationing on Earth for a few of their Kehawan months... During planning, they had noticed we were doing a gig there, and went out of their way to see us! Isn't that amazing?"

The Doctor glanced at the picture on his phone and smiled. "Oh, Keharans. They're a lot like humans, too. I'm not surprised they like human bands, but I've never heard of them going to human concerts..."

"That's pretty awesome, though, that you have fans all over the universe," Luke said, grinning.

"Eh, I wouldn't say the entire universe, Kehara is relatively close," the Doctor pointed out. "The galaxy, though, yeah. But still, quite an accomplishment. Well done."

Matt bowed his head. "Aww, thanks. Not weally that big of a deal..." Then his face turned curious. "I wonder how they got a copy of our music in the first place...?"

The Doctor shifted his weight awkwardly. "Umm... good question..."

Jack noticed the Doctor's sudden mood change, and covered up for him. "I bet some other Keharans brought it back from a different vacation. An Earth souvenir. Imagine that."

Dom ran over, laughing. "I heard what you were saying about the cat people. You left out the fact that they were, as it turns out, total fangirls for me."

Matt blushed and turned away from him. "It wasn't that important of a detail..."

"Yeah, but why did you leave it out?"

He paused for a second, then turned around and stared blankly at a playful Dom, who grinned goofily back at him. "What are you twying to imply?"

They burst into laughter as Matt tried as hard as he could not to look embarassed at what Dom was obviously hinting. This was more like Dom; not emo and heartbroken, but acting like a twelve-year-old around his friends. I smiled. All was not lost.

I walked over to the Doctor's tree and leaned against it, the fibery bark of the sequoias rubbing against my shirt and hair. "They are such boys."

To my surprise, rather than being insulted, the Doctor smiled. "Of course they are. They've known each other for twenty years now. And they're human as well."

"Are you calling us idiots?"

He grinned playfully. "Nah, not really... just... happier."

It was then that I noticed exactly how awkward the Doctor felt here, yet exactly how at home. Here he was, taking a bunch of humans to visit a human band. He knew he could never be human, and was jealous of us. He wanted to join our society more than anything, to leave Gallifrey and the Timelords behind.

But at the same time, Matt was half Timelord. He had spent his school years hiding his intelligence, agility, strength, and two hearts, and even now he was forced sometimes to keep parts of him secret, knowing no one could ever know (and they probably wouldn't believe it anyways.) He wasn't afraid of crowds, but still, in a way, he was forced to hide. He was, in many ways, just like the Doctor.

Of course, there was still the other half of his DNA, but the Doctor could let that slide. He was obviously just yearning for someone who understood him.

After a few hours of chatter, the boys had to go off in order to be in Seattle within a week. Upon this announcement was dissapointment, but after lots of hugs and goodbyes, they headed back to their trailer for some sleep before a day of driving (and probably taking lots of touristy photos around the Bay Area, as well). But as we left, I heard one of them follow us back to the TARDIS.

I looked back before getting in and saw a shadow peeping behind a tree. I turned around and gave whoever it was- probably Matt- a quick salute. To Gallifrey.

In the darkness, I barely saw him salute back. To Earth.

Matt stood, peering out behind a tree, as he watched the group pile into the TARDIS. He was glad for them, that they had all seen the far corners of the universe at one time or another. But also, he was jealous, and sad a bit, too. He had seen the stars once in his life, and would love to see them again.

But more than anything, Matt wanted to see Gallifrey. Not even to interact; that would be nice, but he just wanted to see it, feel it, to see if he felt at home there. Because those four minutes he had spent staring at the stars were the first time in his life he had ever felt at home. There were similar moments here on Earth, like the way his fingers felt right on a piano, or his mind was at peace at nighttime, in the moonlight. But it wasn't the same.

He just wanted to go home.

At the last second, before everyone was in, Martha turned around and spotted him. Whether or not she recognized him he couldn't be sure, but she definitely saw him. He knew for sure when she turned around and raised her fingers to her forehead in salute, almost a thank-you.

Grinning, he saluted back to her. Thanks for everything.

She smiled, and walked in, closing the door behind her. The clearing was suddenly dark except for the light of the nearly full moon. Nothing could be heard except for the distant murmurs of Chris and Dom in the trailer and the Pacific wind howling through the forest, causing the gigantic redwoods to sway.

Then, suddenly, the light on the top of the TARDIS turned on, and the near silence was eaten by the groan of the alien device as it faded from view, in, then out, over and over again until it was completely gone, leaving nothing but echoes and a small square of twigless dirt sitting on the ground.

He remembered the last time he had seen such a sight, after the Doctor and Martha had dropped him off at his grandmother's house, twenty years ago. The Doctor had shook his hand and thanked him for his help with the Daleks, staying at the console. But Martha had given him this promising smile and said simply, "Good luck, Matthew Bellamy."

Then she had closed the doors, and the TARDIS had dematerialized, hurling itself back into the Time Vortex, leaving him standing there in a cold, soothing rain.

Matt shook himself back to reality, realizing he had never told them how he truly felt about space. It was his home. He loved Earth, having grown up there and lived there all his life, but his heart was with the stars, floating in the vast canyon of the universe, unbound by gravity. They had shown him that.

"Thank you," he told them, his voice breaking the silence of the empty forest.

And with that, he tore himself from the beauty of nature and headed back to the trailer. But still he paused before getting in and gazed longingly into the night sky.

Maybe someday, Matthew, he told himself, blinking up at the cavernous void of space. Maybe someday.