A/N: Hello! Thanks to everyone who has left a review, it means a lot to me! Special thanks to my two wonderful betas Bria and rosets2008, who both were so wonderful in helping me to make this chapter the best it could be. Lots of love to them. Also note that flashbacks are in italics!

Chapter 10: Reminders

She was piloting the Tardis, but her ship was shuddering and wrenching itself in every direction, more so than usual in protest to their next destination. It was against every ounce of even the Doctor's better judgement to do what she was currently doing, but she was out of ideas and out of options. The ship jerked her to the ground and she grunted as her face slammed into the grating. More than a bit disoriented, she somehow managed to grab hold of the edge of the Tardis console. Pulling herself back up, she desperately pressed a few buttons in the hopes of coaxing the old girl to land. "C'mon, c'mon! Please, just to do this one thing for me!" The Tardis let loose a wild beep of protest and took another violent lurch as if trying to throw her back to the ground. The Doctor cursed in frustration before grabbing the mallet threateningly. "Don't test me right now! C'mon and land! Land!" The Tardis shuddered again.

Ianto meanwhile was hanging onto a railing for dear life as the ship jerked violently this way and that. Sparks exploded so near his head that he felt a few burning stings on his skin. He coughed as smoke entered his lungs.

"Doctor! Where the hell are you trying to take us!?"

She yelled out in frustration again, before turning to look at him while pumping something up and down that was too obscured in the smoking console for him to see. "The timelines are wrong, Ianto, and it's taken me this long to realize it! We don't have time to track down the problem; we need to get right to the source of it! Time is falling apart now," she shouted over the sound of the sparks and the violent rattling. "The timelines are tangled, but I can't tell where anymore. The wound has been festering far too long and that is all my fault! But there is one place, Ianto Jones, one place I can go that will show me what is wrong."

"Where, Doctor? Where is it!"

She flung a leg up on the console to steady the ship, and then she turned to him with a suddenly piercing glance and said in a voice that frightened Ianto to no end, "Trenzalore."

The Tardis landed and both Ianto and the Doctor fell to the ground in a heap. The Doctor was up first as usual, and she offered Ianto a hand before spinning him towards the doors with a grin. She looked at him expectantly.

"Oh, all right. I'll bite. Where've you taken us this time, you mad alien?"

She grinned. "I have absolutely no idea! More fun that way. Set her on random and here we are."

"I love it when you set it on random."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Could be dangerous."

"I'd honestly be more frightened if it wasn't, Doctor," Ianto said, his expression completely serious. "The world just has to be ending on the day the Doctor doesn't get into some form of trouble." His lips twitched and he broke character, laughing as his hand reached for the door, pulling it wide open so that they could both peer out.

In his months of traveling with her, Ianto had grown into himself. He had loosened up considerably as they went planet to planet, witnessing the wonders of the universe. And while he still showed an outrageous amount of care for anyone he met, gone were the days when he'd let people walk all over him.

The Doctor recognized the planet immediately as they looked out, a bright grin lighting her face. "Ah, brilliant! Aenona! Looks like we've arrived just a few years after their golden age," she said, as she took in their surroundings and tapped into her time sense. "They're famous for the tapestries they weave. The threads they use are sentient," she said grinningly as she dragged him towards a large white marbled building that lined the streets. "They move and flow into the image they are created for."

They entered the building, a flash from the psychic paper immediately granting them access. She pulled him to the first picture she saw, an intricate river that flowed among rocks and trees. She looked up as he watched the river literally move and bend by the thin living creatures, carefully weaving around each other. His face held wonder and she smiled brightly at the look. "Wow, that's a bit Harry Potter isn't it? Moving pictures." She laughed and pulled him along.

They moved through the gallery, examining the wonderful pieces, blending easily in with the spectators around them. As they walked along the Doctor finally felt her heart lightening, if just a little. It had been months since she'd lost him, and for the first time the thought of him didn't hurt quite so badly.

As they entered the main room of the gallery laughing and joking with one another, she heard a small gasp of surprise off to her left side, but when she turned her head with a questioning look, there was nothing there. Shrugging, she turned her attention back to Ianto.

"What's that crowd doing over there, Doctor?" Ianto asked her, breaking her from her thoughts. She turned to examine what he was looking at and noticed the crowd gathered around one large tapestry, obscuring their view of the work. She lifted up on her tiptoes trying to capture a glimpse of it to no avail.

"Huh, don't know. Let's check it out."

They waited for the crowds to part, pushing their way through so that they could catch a glimpse of the apparently popular art piece. When they finally arrived in front of it, the Doctor felt her hearts drop straight to her stomach.

Familiar brown eyes and wild hair that she'd recognize anywhere, meticulously woven with living threads into the tapestry with vivid detail; it was a moving portrait of John.

"But that's..." Ianto whispered, looking with round, wide eyes at the rendering of John up on the wall, his hair moving gently as if being blown in a breeze, all captured by the delicate living threads. Ianto turned to her. "Doctor?"

"I-I, It's...This doesn't make any sense. I never...We never came here together! How...?" She ran her hands with frustration through the blond strands of her hair. Her eyes came to rest once more on the portrait with something akin to wonder...and fear. "Perhaps it's just some kind of anomaly. It can't actually be..."

Her hearts were pounding in her chest as she looked at his face. It was entirely impossible. John was trapped. She had tried everything to get him back. So, what could it possibly mean that his face was here on a planet that she was sure she had never taken him to? It seemed that no matter how hard she tried to move on, there was no escaping his presence. But there had to be some kind of explanation for how he came to be here. Perhaps this man in front of her was not really John, but just a doppelganger. It was possible; after all, she had seen things a thousand times more impossible than some kind of genetic anomaly. But at the same time there was the possibility that...She could hardly bring herself to think it in case it wasn't true! But there was a chance, a slight chance that just maybe if he was here on some planet she had never visited with him before...maybe she would get him back in the future! Could it be that right now he was traveling and saving the world with her in her immediate future, that right in front of her was proof of that? The thought filled her with so much hope that she thought she might burst with it. Eagerly, unable to help herself from letting the idea run rampant in her head, she quickly lunged and grabbed the arm of the nearest curator when he walked by. "Excuse me, but can you tell me about this piece," she practically demanded, gesturing to the likeness of John.

"How can it be that you've not heard one of our most famous legends here on Aenona, miss? It happened ever so long ago and the details are jumbled at best, but I will recount to you what has been passed down for generations in our Kingdom.

You see, Mecerellius, our late and most beloved ruler, may he rest in peace, was the second eldest son in a household of a long line of rulers. His brother Meckerolonious was the eldest, and after the King their father's death, Meckerolonious was meant to be King in his place as was his birth right. However, the council saw Mecerellius as a more apt and wiser man, and thus he was selected over his brother to rule.

The rejected brother, in a fit of rage and jealousy, disappeared soon after Mecerellius took the throne. Not long after his disappearance, a sinister plot was rumored to have been afoot, a plan of rebellion by one of the King's closest advisors. This traitor planned to assist in the murder of our most beloved ruler and many believed he was working for the would-have-been-King, the most tyrannical and jealous brother, Meckerolonious. But it was spelled out in our histories that before such an event could take place, a man fell out of the stars on a steed of blue to vanquish the brewing conflict.

The details have since been lost, but it was said that he saved the King's life and aided the capture and imprisonment of the evil brother. Alas, the man was gone soon thereafter, flying back into the heavens from whence he descended. Many praise him as a deity sent down to us in our time of trouble. The King had this tapestry made to honor the help he provided, and for saving His Majesty's life."

The Doctor listened to his story with rapt attention, her heart pounding at its meaning. She asked, her mouth slightly dry, "Do the accounts give a name for this man? Do they say if he was alone or perhaps if he...had help?"

"That's actually a fascinating point, Miss, one that has been long debated by our top historians. Some records suggest that he was in the company of a man and a woman, but the sources are hard to decipher." The Doctor's heart was pounding. A man and a woman; her and Ianto perhaps. Could it be that they would all travel together one day?

She took this in, feeling dizzy. "A-and...any mentions of a name?"

"Ah yes." The man had smiled at her kindly and excitedly. "His name was said to be John. John Smith."

She thought her hearts would burst right out of her chest. There was no other explanation for it then. He had to be coming back to her somehow! Once more traveling the stars together, saving worlds like this one. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes, just the idea that she might one day see him again. She grabbed the man's hands and spun excitedly around with him, unable to help herself with the utter joy she was feeling. "Oh, this is marvelous! A marvelous tale! Thank you!" The curator gave her a rather befuddled look, but smiled at her kindly. "You're quite welcome, miss."

Words were inadequate to describe the joy that encompassed her over the next few trips. Where so long she had been melancholic and moving on because she must, she now found instead a new sense of purpose and life everywhere they went. She could once again look at the universe with a sense of joy, knowing that John would one day share it with her again. Her Tardis kept up regular scans for more cracks between the void and this world, just in case, and while Ianto was sleeping she eagerly ran calculations and read various books, seeing if she could find any way of assisting him back through the void. Her various failures didn't trouble her as they once might have because she knew now that it was only a matter of time. And how could she be disheartened when so many foreshadowings that she would one day get him back were popping up all over the universe?

His name was almost everywhere she went, following her across time and space. John Smith. Sometimes it was in casual passing, sometimes it was with reverence or thankfulness that they spoke it, sometimes he had even been proclaimed a deity on the planets she visited, such as he had been on Aenona. Pictures and sculptures and art were proof enough that it was her John. Even the ominous words Bad Wolf began reappearing frequently, but now instead of filling her with dread, they filled her only with the hope of his presence. What other explanation was there except that he was coming back to her? She never bothered to consider any others, lost as she was in her utter hope and belief that she would one day be able to hold him in her arms.

She couldn't help loving these reminders that he would one day be with her again. They had become a solace to her. She could imagine them out there somewhere, saving worlds and living a fantastic life with together again. It comforted her, feeling his presence so very close everywhere she went. She'd even begun opening up to Ianto about him, as she found that the foreknowledge had eased the heartache dramatically.

At first her recounting of John had been vague at best; she wouldn't say much as the pain was still too recent. However, as time passed she began opening up more and more to the point where she couldn't seem to stop. She began telling Ianto stories of him, trying to look for some kind of connection amidst the craziness and randomness of his 'presence' on these other worlds, hoping for it to offer some clue as to how and when she would get him back. And soon she found herself telling stories of him simply to keep his memory alive. A planet would explain how he had heroically swept in to save them, and in turn she would tell of another time she remembered when he had given her the most brilliant idea that had ended up saving thousands of people. And the more she talked fondly of him, the less it began hurting. She was able to look back on the memories with hope and an overwhelming amount of happiness. The wounds were no longer festering, and even though it didn't stop completely from hurting, and didn't stop her from missing him, she was grateful that she no longer looked back with a sense of hurt and regret. For one day she knew he would be back!

Oh, but how wrong she was. As time passed, she began noticing how history seemed to be changing on planets spread out around the galaxies. It was small at first, a detail here or there, but it began getting worse. Where once empires and kingdoms and democracies lived in their golden age, she found death, destruction and hopelessness in its stead. World after world plagued by horror, Reapers and Daleks and Cyberman and corrupt rulers, until she could no longer keep up, she couldn't always save the day. It was horrifying the way the timelines seemed to be breaking down everywhere, especially when she was helpless to stop it. All her hopes were quickly depleted as she realized the truth, that every place where she had ever seen or heard of John was somehow wrong.

But by the time the realization had dawned upon her, it was too late. There were hints of him turning up around the universe more than ever, and the more it happened the more destruction of timelines she began to sense. At first she had tried to deny that anything was wrong, she told herself that John would come back to her and all would be well again. But no matter how much she tried to convince herself, the timelines were still running rampant in her head, all twisted, tangled and mutilated to the point of being nauseating. History was unraveling, not just on Earth but on planets across numerous galaxies. The Doctor was at a loss for how to fix it, or what went wrong in the first place and how it all connected back to John when he wasn't even here. The Doctor was absolutely terrified. She had no idea what to do, having let it go on for this long because she had been so afraid to lose this last bit of him that she had left. And now the universe would pay the price for her negligence. Time was being ripped apart and it was all her fault.

"Trenzalore? What's at Trenzalore?"

"My grave."

"Your WHAT?"

"My grave," she grunted, as she threw all her weight at a lever to move it upright. The Tardis groaned at the action. "And we really shouldn't, ahhh, be going there." Her voice was slightly out of breath as she spoke.

"Then why the hell are we going there?" Ianto shouted over the noise.

She threw him a manic grin that in no way served to ease his worries. "When have you ever known me to do what I'm supposed to, hmm? And HA!"

With a flick of her wrist, the floor suddenly went out from under their feet and they were forced to grab onto the railings as they began to rapidly free fall. "WHAT IS GOING ON!" Ianto shouted out miserably as the Doctor whooped and hollered. His stomach was rolling with nausea and he was quite sure at this point that the Doctor had completely lost it. His pleas, however, went unanswered.

The Tardis landed with a sickening crash and both he and the Doctor were thrown to the ground, face first into the grating. Both of them let loose loud moans of pain.

The Doctor recovered first, swiftly standing up and letting loose another triumphant, "HA!" as she fist punched the air. She spun around in glee and then, seeming to finally notice the still groaning lump that was Ianto, she went over to help him to his feet. She held out her hand to him, but he ignored it and groaned once more. "Leave me here to die, Doctor. I can't go on."

"Oh, stop being so dramatic, you," she said as she forcefully yanked his resisting body upwards. He immediately clutched his throbbing head when he was once again standing. "Oww..."

The Doctor, however, was giddy. But not the good kind of giddiness - more like the crazy kind. She yanked her blue leather jacket from the coral strut and threw it on. "C'mon then. Time isn't going to fix itself," she said, cackling. Ianto looked at her worriedly.

"Doctor, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all! Everything is perfectly fine! I'm fine! Perfectly fine! More fine than wine! So, how about it, then? Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go-"

Ianto grabbed her shoulders forcefully. "Doctor!"

She blinked rapidly, her eyes nearly rolling back in her head. She squeezed them shut tightly and gripped her head for a long moment before tentatively opening them to meet his eyes again.

"Sorry about that," she said, her voice slightly sheepish.

Ianto just smiled, relieved. "Welcome back, Doctor."

She looked at him wide-eyed for a moment. Finally, she nodded. "Right then, thank you."

"Not so fast, Doctor," he said, giving her a rather pointed look before she could say anything. "Why don't you explain to me what's going on here because quite honestly, you're frightening the hell out of me!"

She let out a deep sigh. "I still can't quite believe I managed to get us here in the first place, brilliant as I am."

"Oh, I believed you could get us here. Alive, however, I wasn't so sure."

"Oi!"

"But where is here, Doctor? What is Trenzalore? And more importantly, could you please explain to me why we shouldn't be here? I'd like to know what I'm getting into. I'd like to know where I'm going."

She blew a piece of hair out of her face as she regarded him steadily. "Well, there are a few rules us time travelers are meant to follow. You know some of the basics, yeah? Don't mess with fixed points, don't cross your own timeline, that kind of thing. But there's one other big rule, one I thought that even I would never, ever break."

"What is it, Doctor?"

"You never visit your own grave. Why d'you think that Tardis was putting up so much of a fight?"

"Maybe because you were losing it back there! Doctor, I've never seen you act like that before. I was worried! What was wrong with you?" Ianto shook his head.

"Oh, that," she said, voice slightly embarrassed. "You see, being in such close proximity with my own time stream scrambles the brain a little, and with the timelines in jeopardy as they are...I'm part of many histories, Ianto Jones, on thousands of planets across the galaxies. Everywhere I've ever been. And all of that history is in danger of changing or has already been changed, and as a result my own life, my own time stream is in danger. I can feel it," she breathed out, voice low and afraid, "I can feel my life breaking apart with no way to stop it. It's maddening being as close as we are to that. My whole time stream is fracturing and it hurts."

Ianto looked troubled. "Doctor, I don't know what you're talking about. Your time stream? Your grave?"

"Ah, yes," she said, her eyes dark. "You see, when a Time Lord or Lady dies, they leave a distinct path through history. Well, it's more like a tear. Multiple tears made to the fabric of time and space. Time travel is damaging to the fabric of reality, and here at my grave rests the scar tissue of my travels. All my life mapped out by thread after thread of disruptions in time. But it's burning. It's wrong. And that's why we're here."

"To fix it?"

"No, we can't fix it! We can't even touch it! In all honesty every instinct in me is telling me to fly the hell away. I shouldn't go near it! I shouldn't even look at it! But don't you see? I'm all out of options, Ianto." Her voice cracked over the words as she looked towards the ground. "Tick tock, time's running out for the Time Lady."

"Doctor..."

"Well, then. Off we pop. Not like me to ever follow the rules anyway. It's only a matter of time now before I do something totally stupid like trying to alter fixed events," she muttered darkly. "I mean, why not? It's not like I haven't already damned the universe anyway, right?"

"Doctor," Ianto tried again. "It's not your fault. Whatever's happening with Time or the timelines or whatever, you can't keep blaming yourself like this. It's not your fault."

She laughed bitterly. "Oh yes, right! Thank you for clearing that up, Ianto; because it wasn't me, right, who ignored all those damned warning signs because I was so desperate to think that I was getting back one stupid, insignificant human boy whom I never should have allowed too close to me in the first place! Come to think of it, we could add that to the list, yeah? Another rule broken," she spit out at him. "But yeah, that wasn't me at all. Good thing I've got you around." Ianto flinched at her words.

"He wouldn't want you to blame yourself either," Ianto said meekly, despite the hurt building up within him. She glared viciously at him, but he stood his ground.

"What gives you the right to say such a thing? You never knew him."

"Yes...but I know, I k-know that if he loved you like I love you, then he wouldn't want you to blame yourself. The same way I don't," he said quietly, his face heating up at the confession and his heart pounding violently in his chest. He wasn't thick enough to believe she was unaware of his feelings. He had spent months with her purposely acting oblivious and deflecting all his advances, after all. It had been obvious how desperately she still loved and missed John, but it hadn't stopped Ianto from loving her anyway. Even if his feelings were unrequited, even if she'd never looked at him the way he looks at her - if he could just take a small piece of this heavy burden off her shoulders, the pain of her rejection would be worth it.

When she looked up at him, her eyes were shining and all traces of anger were gone from her face. He held open his arms to her tentatively and she stepped into them, burying her face into his chest. He held her tightly and relished the feeling of being wrapped around her, before he forcefully pushed those thoughts away. He would be what she needed him to be.

"I know I can never replace him, Doctor. But I care about you and I'm here for you. We can face this together. We can fix whatever's going on here together."

When she pulled back after a few moments, her face was once again determined. Ianto smiled brightly at the sight of it. She brought her hand up to softly touch his cheek and said, "Thank you."

"Anytime, Doctor."

"Right then. Best be on our way."

She swung open the Tardis doors and then stepped out into the quiet and dreary graveyard. The Doctor's face tightened immediately and Ianto instinctively grabbed her hand. They both looked up to see a large police box silhouetted in the moonlight.

"Oh my," Ianto breathed out.

"That's fitting," the Doctor said with a forced casualness. "The Tardis being my tombstone."

"You mean a replica of the Tardis? That's huge!"

"No, no. That's my Tardis. My actual Tardis. Dimensions are breaking down now that she's...passed."

"That's incredible."

"Yes," she said softly, as they both looked upon the magnificent sight. "Right then," she said after a moment, quickly beginning to drag him along. "We need to get in and out quickly. Like I said, we really shouldn't be here, so the faster we are the better."

The trek to the giant blue box was tiresome. The ground was on a steep incline and old tombstones, rocks and gnarled roots impeded their path every step of the way. Ianto thought he must have tripped at least fifty times on the way up, much to the Doctor's amusement. Ianto, however, hadn't found it the least bit funny as this was one of his more expensive suits and there was no way that these questionable stains were ever coming out.

"That's why I've always just my trusty leather jacket. Very durable," she said, tongue between her teeth in response to his angry grumbling.

"Well, as I recall, you weren't wearing it in that picture I saw of you," he muttered petulantly, recalling the soft pink hoodie she had been wearing when her arms had been wrapped around Jack and John. He had never seen her wear anything similar to that in all his time traveling with her.

The Doctor was silent at this assessment, much to his surprise. When he looked up at her in question, her eyes were focused on the ground.

"Doctor. You've been talking about him nonstop for the past few months and now you want to close me out?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She sighed.

"You're right, it's just...silly, I guess. I used to wear hoodies like that all the time with him, you know. He just...made me feel young. More innocent than I was. Than I am." She plucked at the leather of her jacket. "This is much more fitting for who I truly am, don't you think. Hard and cold. A warrior and a killer."

"Doctor..."

"Here we are," she said before he could say anything else, cutting him off more effectively with her tone than anything else. Ianto followed her gaze. Looking up at its doors now, the Tardis was absolutely massive.

"Bloody hell."

"Now, how to get in," the Doctor mused.

"Maybe there's some kind of secret entrance or maybe..."

The Doctor snapped her fingers. With a frightening, bellowing creak that Ianto would insist vehemently did not make him scream like a girl, the Tardis's doors opened just a crack.

"Ah, brilliant! I've always been one to walk straight into a situation! Secret entrances, trap doors and the like are just, blehhhh. I much prefer the direct approach. Much quicker this way!"

"You're mad."

She simply grinned at him.

They slipped past the door into what looked like the console room, only it was in tatters compared to the lively place Ianto was used to. There were no branching coral struts or soft, green lighting. The colors were muted and dull, with everything inside battered and old, plants weaving and growing all along the jump seat and ramp. However, all of this was on the peripheral of Ianto's thoughts as the thing that caught his attention almost immediately was the beautiful shimmering and silver strands that were twisting and coiling where the central column used to reside. Ianto's jaw dropped at the sight, and voices started ringing out all around them.

"What is that?" Ianto breathed out.

"Me. That's me. What I'll become. Echoes in time."

"It's beautiful," he said, unable to help himself. She smiled weakly at him, but her face was pale.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, m'fine."

"It's okay to be scared, Doctor," he said, very softly.

"No, it's not...It hurts to be here. You remember how I compared time travel to wounds in time? Well these are all my wounds, right here. All the ones that I've created. And I can feel them all at once and it hurts. It's dangerous to be here, and with the timelines already so unstable, it's all the more dangerous and painful."

"Well let's do this quick, then," Ianto said hurriedly, unable to bear seeing her in pain. "Or, well, what exactly is it that we're doing?"

"I have to find where things went wrong in the timelines. Something isn't right. So my time stream should reflect that, yeah? Be poisoned by the cancer, if you will. Well, only if I'm directly involved somehow, but seeing that John was involved for some reason, there's no doubt that I am as well. And if I just knew where it was, then I can go back and fix it." She pulled out her screwdriver and did a quick scan of the patch of lights. It danced and coiled as she ran the screwdriver over it, until a shimmering line burst forth, one limp and lifeless in comparison to the others. A sickly red color spread out from it, curling outwards as it began infecting the other strands, its progress slow but steady.

"Is that it?" he whispered.

"Shhh," she breathed, her eyes fixated upon it.

Just then, voices started to burst forth out of the thread of light, images rapidly engulfing them. Ianto was swept up into the memories that did not belong to him, so intensely that he couldn't remember where he began and the memory ended. He felt all that was, all that is, and all that ever could be, and most importantly all that should have been (but was not) in the memories. A memory that he now knew had not happened the way it should have. The flawed events flew past him in quick succession as they played out before his eyes.

The Doctor shouting out to hold on.

Someone slipping and falling.

Banging. Tears. Desperation.

Bring him back. Bring him back.

Months and months of hopelessness.

No touch.

Am I ever going to see you again?

You can't.

I love you.

Quite Right, too.

When it finally ended, Ianto gasped desperately for breath. What the hell had that been? His scrambled thoughts flew to the Doctor. Frantically, he began searching for her. She was curled up on the ground and Ianto felt fear constrict his heart as he fell to his knees by her side.

"Doctor! Doctor!" He checked for a pulse, and let out a little choked sound of relief when he felt the fluttering beats of her two hearts. "C'mon Doctor, wake up!"

When she did, she gasped and coughed much like he had moments ago. Her face was wet with tears and his heart clenched in utter sympathy, his own eyes stinging with fresh tears. The memories of her loss had been so strong, almost as if it were his own.

"Did you see it, Ianto?" she asked in a raspy, desperate voice. She gripped him by the lapels of his jacket. "Did you see it?" He only nodded, finding that words failed him. And then to his complete and utter surprise, she laughed gleefully.

He was still trembling from the onslaught of emotions his body had just been forced to undergo in such a short amount of time. Emotions that he now knew she had experienced. His mind was still reeling from the memories of John falling, the one story that she had not and would not tell him. When he looked at her face, there was something there now that hadn't been there before; that light he had always promised himself he would try to put back into her eyes, but had never quite been able to. He asked the only thing question he could. "What does it all mean, Doctor?"

Her answering smile was like the sun. "It means," she said, "that I can get him back!"